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VENICE 



VENICE 

As Seen and Described 
by Famous Writers 



Edited and Translated by 
ESTHER SINGLETON 

Author of "Turrets, Towers and Temples," 

"Great Pictures," and "A Guide to the 

Opera," and translator of '"The Music 

Dramas of Richard Wagner" 



WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 




3N>ro f nrfe 

Dodd, Mead and Company 

J 9°5 



J}G\b~l V- 



LIBRARY of C0NQf?esS 
TWO Copies ftOtttvea 

MAR 30 1905 
pppyrigm entry 



Copyright, 1905, 

BY 

Dodd, Mead & Company 



Published March 



'PREFACE 

This book consists of a collection of impressions, essays and 
criticisms by sympathetic travellers, historians and artists, 
gathered together to give a general impression of the half- 
submerged " Queen of the Adriatic." We are prepared for 
the peculiar charm of the fantastic floating city of dreams by 
Dickens's prose-poem which shows the spirit with which 
Venice should be visited and studied ; for the Venice of to-day, 
with her fallen Campanile, her filled-up canals, and her 
modern life is entirely ignored in these pages, where only the 
picturesque and individual phases of the city are presented. 

The historical articles by Grant Allen on the Origins of 
Venice and by Ruskin on Torcello, which open and close the 
book, emphasize the antiquity of the " City of the Lagoons " 
and her simple beginnings. The growth of the Republic is 
clearly set forth by Green, and her power and magnificence 
are described in the course of various essays, notably those on 
The Doge and The Arsenal. The first two historical 
articles prepare us for our trip through Venice, before taking 
which, Ruskin gives a general view of the ocean-city, " set 
like a golden clasp on the girdle of the earth," reflecting its 
marble palaces upon that " green pavement " which every 
breeze breaks " into new fantasies of rich tesselation," or 
standing at ebb-tide upon its flat plain of dark green seaweed. 



VI 



PREFACE 



As in my similar books on London and Paris, I have fol- 
lowed a general plan of topographical arrangement. There- 
fore, we begin with a general view of the Lagoons and the 
" Outer Rim " from which we catch a distant glimpse of 
Venice. We then enter a gondola and float along the Grand 
Canal with Gautier to point out its array of palaces and 
monuments of fame, beauty and historical interest, pausing to 
learn from Molmenti of the luxurious interiors of the Patri- 
cian's Palaces in their prime. Santa Maria della Salute, The 
Rialto, the Ca' d'Oro and the Fondachi claim our attention 
until we land and ascend the Campanile, with Henry Havard 
to aid us in recognising the chief buildings at our feet and 
the misty blue mountain peaks in the far distance. After this 
bird's-eye view of luminous Venice, framed by her lagoons, 
we enter St. Mark's to study its architecture, sculptures and 
mosaics, and next stop to enjoy the Piazza and learn the sig- 
nificance of its famous columns. The Ducal Palace then 
claims our interest, without and within. Our travels through 
the city are now interrupted by the examination of some mas- 
terpieces of Venetian painting, described by Taine; after 
which, we again enter our gondola to visit some of the 
churches of especial note, wells and squares, and side-canals, 
which happily for us are not yet filled up. We enjoy a few 
afternoon excursions to islands from Chioggia on the south to 
Torcello on the north, — and thus our visit ends. 

In the meantime, we have noted some of the industries of 
old Venice, and some of her ancient customs; such as the 
coronation of the Doge, and his wedding of the Adriatic in 



PREFACE 



Vll 



the Bucentaur. We have learned about the Gondoliers and 
their Traghetti, and enjoyed the gay life of the Piazza and 
Riva de' Schiavoni, and individual types of Venetians upon 
the Rialto and at Chioggia. We have seen the " Queen of 
the Adriatic " under some of her most peculiar as well as 
enchanting aspects; for instance, during her season of Carni- 
val and festival of All Souls' Day; we have seen her during 
spring, summer, autumn and winter; in all the loveliness of 
dawn, sunset and night; when the fierce sirocco is approach- 
ing, and when floods inundate the city. 

It must be remembered that such a rapid tour cannot be 
complete; therefore, all that I have endeavored to do within 
the limited space at my disposal, has been to preserve the 
impressions and present the descriptions that the traveller 
best cares to retain. E. S. 

New York, February, 1905. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

An Italian Dream 1 

Charles Dickens 

Origin of Venice 13 

Grant Allen 

Venice and Rome 25 

John Richard Green 

The City of the Lagoons 34 

John Ruskin 

The Lagoons 45 

Horatio F. Broivn 

The Gondola . 52 

Theophile Gautier 

The Outer Rim 55 

William Sharp 

The Traghetti . . .64 

Horatio F. Broivn 

The Grand Canal . 74 

Theophile Gautier 

The Patricians' Palaces 85 

P. Molmenti 

Santa Maria della Salute 91 

John Ruskin 

The Rialto 94 

Charles Yriarte 

TheCa' d'Oro 99 

Max Doumic 

The Fondaco dei Turchi and The Fondaco dei Tedeschi . . 104 

Charles Yriarte 

View from the Campanile 113 

Henry Harvard 
ix 






CONTENTS 

PAGE 

St. Mark's 119 

John Ruskin 

The Sculptures on the Facade of St. Mark's . . . .131 

Jean Paul Richter 

The Mosaics of Venice . 144 

William B. Scott 

The Piazza .... 151 

Henry Perl 

The Doves of St. Mark's 163 

Horatio F. Brown 
The Columns of the Piazzetta ...... 167 

John Ruskin 

The Ducal Palace 178 

John Ruskin 

Interior of the Ducal Palace 192 

Theophile Gautier 

The Carnival 202 

Charles Yriarte 

Riva degli Schiavoni . ... 206 

Julia Cartnvright 

By Side Canals .211 

Linda Villari 

Some Churches of Venice 217 

Henry Perl 

All Souls' Day 224 

Horatio F. Brown 

Canals, Wells and Squares 229 

Julia Cartnvright 

Summer in Venice 235 

Linda Villari 

Night in Venice 243 

John Addington Symonds 

/The Arsenal 246 

Charles Yriarte 
The Doge 255 

William Carenjo Hazlitt 



CONTENTS xi 

PAGE 

Tombs of the Doges 262 

Hippolyte Adolphe Taine 

Wealth and Industries of Old Venice 272 

William B. Scott 

The Brides of Venice 278 

John Ruskin 

Seasons in Venice 287 

Julia Cart-wright 
Venetian Painting .... .... 292 

Hippolyte Adolphe Taine 

Venice and Tintoretto 305 

John Richard Green 

Floods in the City 314 

Horatio F. Brown 

Venetian Melancholy 319 

John Addington Symonds 

Afternoon Excursions (San Lazzaro, Malamocco — Fusina — 

The Lido) 330 

John Addington Symonds 

Chioggia 338 

Henry Ecroyd 

Murano 343 

John Ruskin 

St. Francis in the Desert 356 

Linda Villari 

Torcello ....'.. ... 362 

John Ruskin 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



View of Venice 


Frontispiece 


Bridge of Sighs 






Fac 


ing Page 8 


Palazzo Dario. 










' 14 


Torcello 










26 


View of Venice 










34 


Grand Canal .... 










' 52 


Canal in Torcello . 










56 


Grand Canal from the Salute 










74 


Palazzo Loredan . 










' 86 


Santa Maria della Salute 










92 


The Rialto .... 










94 


The Ca' D'Oro 










' 100 


The Fondaco dei Turchi 










104 


View from the Campanile 










1 "4 


St. Mark's .... 










' 120 


Southern Fagade of St. Mark's 










132 


Interior of St. Mark's . 










' 144 


The Doves of St. Mark's 










164 


The Columns of the Piazzetta 










1 168 


The Ducal Palace 










178 


The Ducal Palace 










' 192 


Piazzetta with Corner of Doge's 1 


5 alac 


B 






' 202 


Riva degli Schiavoni 










1 206 


Sanudo Vanaxel Canal 










212 


Church of S. Zaccaria . 










1 218 


Church of 11 Santissimo Redentore 






' " 224 


S. Maria della Misericorda: Doct 








t t 


' 230 



XIV 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Lido Baths .... 
Island of S. Giorgio Maggiore 

The Arsenal 

Palazzo Venezia-Murano 
Statue of Colleoni .... 
Bronze Horses of St. Mark's 
Grand Canal Showing Vendramini: 
lergi Palace .... 

Rio Albrizzi 

Bacchus and Ariadne 

Rape of Europa .... 

Palazzo Giustiniani Vescovi 

Lido: View of S. Maria Elisabetta 

Fish Market in Venice . 

San Donato, Italy .... 

Santa Fosca, Torcello 

Interior of Santa Fosca, Torcello . 



Ca- 



icing 


r Page 


236 




" 


244 


u 
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u 

U 

u 

it 


246 
2 S 6 
262 
272 




<« 
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278 
288 




a 


292 




«« 


302 




«( 


306 
330 




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338 


it 


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344 




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356 


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362 



AN ITALIAN DREAM 

CHARLES DICKENS 

I HAD been travelling for some days ; resting very little 
in the night, and never in the day. The rapid and 
unbroken succession of novelties that had passed before 
me came back like half-formed dreams; and a crowd of 
objects wandered in the greatest confusion through my mind, 
as I travelled on by a solitary road. At intervals, some one 
among them would stop, as it were, in its restless flitting to 
and fro, and enable me to look at it quite steadily, and behold 
it in full distinctness. After a few moments it would dis- 
solve, like a view in a magic lantern ; and while I saw some 
part of it quite plainly, and some faintly, and some not at all, 
would show me another of the many places I had lately seen, 
lingering behind it, and coming through it. This was no 
sooner visible than, in its turn, it melted into something else. 
At one moment I was standing again before the brown old 
rugged churches of Modena. As I recognised the curious 
pillars with grim monsters for their bases, I seemed to see 
them, standing by themselves, in the quiet square at Padua, 
where there were the staid old University, and the figures 
demurely gowned, grouped here and there in the open space 
about it. Then, I was strolling in the outskirts of that 
pleasant city, admiring the unusual neatness of the dwelling- 
houses, gardens, and orchards, as I had seen them a few hours 



2 VENICE 

before. In their stead arose, immediately, the two towers of 
Bologna; and the most obstinate of all these objects failed to 
hold its ground a minute, before the monstrous moated castle 
of Ferrara, which, like an illustration to a wild romance, 
came back again in the red sunrise, lording it over the solitary, 
grass-grown, withered town. In short, I had that incoher- 
ent, but delightful jumble in my brain, which travellers are 
apt to have, and are indolently willing to encourage. Every 
shake of the coach in which I sat, half dozing, in the dark, 
appeared to jerk some new recollection out of its place, and 
to jerk some other new recollection into it; and in this state 
I fell asleep. 

I was awakened after sometime (as I thought) by the 
stopping of the coach. It was now quite night, and we were 
at the waterside. There lay here a black boat, with a little 
house or cabin in it of the same mournful colour. When I 
had taken my seat in this, the boat was paddled, by two men, 
toward a great light lying in the distance on the sea. 

Ever and again there was a dismal sigh of wind. It 
ruffled the water, and rocked the boat, and sent the dark 
clouds flying before the stars. I could not but think how 
strange it was to be floating away at that hour: leaving the 
land behind, and going toward this light upon the sea. 
It soon began to burn brighter; and, from being one light, 
became a cluster of tapers, twinkling and shining out of the 
water, as the boat approached toward them by a dreamy kind 
of track, marked out upon the sea by posts and piles. 

We had floated on, five miles or so, over the dark water, 



AN ITALIAN DREAM 3 

when I heard it rippling, in my dream, against some obstruc- 
tion near at hand. Looking out attentively, I saw, through 
the gloom, a something black and massive — like a shore, but 
lying close and flat upon the water, like a raft — which we 
were gliding past. The chief of the two rowers said it was 
a burial-place. 

Full of the interest and wonder which a cemetery lying 
out there, in the lonely sea, inspired, I turned to gaze upon it 
as it should recede in our path, when it was quickly shut out 
from my view. Before I knew by what, or how, I found 
that we were gliding up a street — a phantom street; the 
houses rising on both sides from the water, and the black boat 
gliding on beneath their windows. Lights were shining 
from some of these casements, plumbing the depth of the black 
stream with their reflected rays; but all was profoundly 
silent. 

So we advanced into this ghostly city, continuing to hold 
our course through narrow streets and lanes, all filled and 
flowing with water. Some of the corners where our way 
branched off were so acute and narrow, that it seemed im- 
possible for the long, slender boat to turn them; but the 
rowers, with a low, melodious cry of warning, sent it skim- 
ming on without a pause. Sometimes the rowers of another 
black boat like our own echoed the cry, and, slackening their 
speed (as I thought we did ours), would come flitting past 
us, like a dark shadow. Other boats, of the same sombre 
hue, were lying moored, I thought, to painted pillars, near to 
dark, mysterious doors that opened straight upon the water. 



4 VENICE 

Some of these were empty; in some the rowers lay asleep; 
toward one I saw some figures coming down a gloomy arch- 
way from the interior of a palace: gaily dressed, and at- 
tended by torch-bearers. It was but a glimpse I had of 
them; for a bridge so low and close upon the boat that it 
seemed ready to fall down and crush us: one of the many 
bridges that perplexed the Dream: blotted them out in- 
stantly. On we went, floating toward the heart of this 
strange place — with water all about us where never water 
was elsewhere — clusters of houses, churches, heaps of stately 
buildings growing out of it — and, everywhere, the same ex- 
traordinary silence. Presently, we shot across a broad and open 
stream; and passing, as I thought, before a spacious paved 
quay where the bright lamps with which it was illuminated 
showed long rows of arches and pillars, of ponderous con- 
struction and great strength, but as light to the eye as gar- 
lands of hoar frost or gossamer — and where, for the first 
time, I saw people walking — arrived at a flight of steps 
leading from the water to a large mansion, where, having 
passed through corridors and galleries innumerable, I lay 
down to rest; listening to the black boats stealing up and 
down below the window on the rippling water till I fell 
asleep. 

The glory of the day that broke upon me in this Dream; 
its freshness, motion, buoyancy; its sparkles of the sun in 
water ; its clear blue sky and rustling air ; no waking words 
can tell. But, from my window, I looked down on boats 
and barques ; on masts, sails, cordage, flags ; on groups of busy 



AN ITALIAN DREAM 5 

sailors working at the cargoes of these vessels ; on wide quays 
strewn with bales, casks, merchandise of many kinds; on 
great ships lying near at hand in stately indolence ; on islands 
crowned with gorgeous domes and turrets ; and where golden 
crosses glittered in the light, atop of wondrous churches 
springing from the sea! Going down upon the margin of 
the green sea, rolling on before the door, and filling all the 
streets, I came upon a place of such surpassing beauty, and 
such grandeur, that all the rest was poor and faded, in com- 
parison with its absorbing loveliness. 

It was a great Piazza, as I thought ; anchored, like all the 
rest, in the deep ocean. On its broad bosom was a Palace, 
more majestic and magnificent in its old age than all the 
buildings of the earth, in the high prime and fulness of their 
youth. Cloisters and galleries: so light, they might have 
been the work of fairy hands; so strong, that centuries had 
battered them in vain; wound round and round this palace, 
and enfolded it with a Cathedral, gorgeous in the wild 
luxuriant fancies of the East. At no great distance from its 
porch, a lofty tower standing by itself, and rearing its proud 
head, alone, into the sky, looked out upon the Adriatic Sea. 
Near to the margin of the stream were two ill-omened pillars 
of red granite; one having on its top a figure with a sword 
and shield; the other, a winged lion. Not far from these, 
again, a second tower: richest of the rich in all its decora- 
tions: even here, where all was rich: sustained aloft a great 
orb, gleaming with gold and deepest blue: the Twelve Signs 
painted on it, and a mimic sun revolving in its course around 



6 VENICE 

them: while above, two bronze giants hammered out the 
hours upon a sounding bell. An oblong square of lofty 
houses of the whitest stone, surrounded by a light and beauti- 
ful arcade, formed part of this enchanted scene: and, here, 
and there, gay masts for flags rose, tapering from the pave- 
ment of the unsubstantial ground. 

I thought I entered the Cathedral, and went in and out 
among its many arches; traversing its whole extent. A grand 
and dreamy structure, of immense proportions; golden with 
old mosaics; redolent of perfumes; dim with the smoke of 
incense; costly in treasure of precious stones and metals, 
glittering through iron bars ; holy with the bodies of deceased 
saints; rainbow-hued with windows of stained glass; dark 
with carved woods and coloured marbles; obscure in its vast 
heights and lengthened distance; shining with silver lamps 
and winking lights; unreal, fantastic, solemn, inconceivable 
throughout. I thought I entered the old palace; pacing 
silent galleries and council-chambers, where the old rulers of 
this mistress of the waters looked sternly out, in pictures, 
from the walls, and where her high-prowed galleys, still 
victorious on canvas, fought and conquered as of old. I 
thought I wandered through its halls of state and triumph — 
bare and empty now! — and musing on its pride and might, 
extinct: for that was past; all past; heard a voice say, 
" Some tokens of its ancient rule, and some consoling reasons 
for its downfall, may be traced here yet ! " 

I dreamed that I was led on, then, into some jealous rooms, 
communicating with a prison near the palace ; separated from 



AN ITALIAN DREAM 7 

it by a lofty bridge, crossing a narrow street; and called, I 
dreamed, The Bridge of Sighs. 

But first I passed two jagged slits in a stone wall; the 
lions' mouths — now toothless — where, in the distempered 
horror of my sleep, I thought denunciations of innocent men 
to the old wicked Council had been dropped through, many a 
time, when the night was dark. So, when I saw the council- 
room to which such prisoners were taken for examination, 
and the door by which they passed out when they were con- 
demned — a door that never closed upon a man with life and 
hope before him — my heart appeared to die within me. 

It was smitten harder though, when, torch in hand, I 
descended from the cheerful day into two ranges, one below 
another, of dismal, awful, horrible stone cells. They were 
quite dark. Each had a loophole in its massive wall, where, 
in the old time, every day, a torch was placed — I dreamed — 
to light the prisoner within for half an hour. The captives, 
by the glimmering of these brief rays had scratched and cut 
inscriptions in the blackened vaults. I saw them. For 
their labour with a rusty nail's point had outlived their agony 
and them, through many generations. 

One cell I saw, in which no man remained for more than 
four-and-twenty hours; being marked for dead before he 
entered it. Hard by, another, and a dismal one, whereto, at 
midnight, the confessor came — a monk brown-robed, and 
hooded — ghastly in the day, and free bright air, but, in the 
midnight of that murky prison, Hope's extinguisher, and 
Murder's herald. I had my foot upon the spot where, at the 



8 VENICE 

same dread hour, the shriven prisoner was strangled; and 
struck my hand upon the guilty door — low-browed and 
stealthy — through which the lumpish sack was carried out 
into a boat, and rowed away, and drowned where it was 
death to cast a net. 

Around this dungeon stronghold, and above some part of 
it : licking the rough walls without, and smearing them with 
damps and slime within ; stuffing dank weeds and refuse into 
chinks and crevices, as if the very stones and bars had mouths 
to stop; furnishing a smooth road for the removal of the 
bodies of the secret victims of the state — a road so ready that 
it went along with them, and ran before them like a cruel 
officer — flowed the same water that filled this Dream of mine, 
and made it seem one, even at the time. 

Descending from the palace by a staircase, called, I 
thought, the Giant's — I had some imaginary recollection of 
an old man abdicating, coming, more slowly and more feebly, 
down it, when he heard the bell proclaiming his successor — I 
glided off, in one of the dark boats, until we came to an old 
arsenal guarded by four marble lions. To make my Dream 
more monstrous and unlikely, one of these had words and 
sentences upon its body, inscribed there at an unknown time, 
and in an unknown language; that their purport was a 
mystery to all men. 

There was little sound of hammers in this place for build- 
ing ships, and little work in progress; for the greatness of 
the city was no more, as I have said. Indeed, it seemed a 
very wreck found drifting on the sea; a strange flag hoisted 




BRIDGE OF SIGHS 



AN ITALIAN DREAM 9 

in its honourable stations, and strangers standing at its helm. 
A splendid barge, in which its ancient chief had gone forth, 
pompously, at certain periods, to wed the ocean, lay here, I 
thought, no more; but, in its place, there was a tiny model 
made from recollection like the city's greatness; and it told 
of what had been (so are the strong and weak confounded 
in the dust) almost as eloquently as the massive pillars, 
arches, roofs, reared to overshadow stately ships that had no 
other shadow now, upon the water or the earth. 

An armoury was there yet. Plundered and despoiled ; but 
an armoury. With a fierce standard taken from the Turks, 
drooping in the dull air of its cage. Rich suits of mail worn 
by great warriors were hoarded there; crossbows and bolts; 
quivers full of arrows; spears; swords, daggers, maces, 
shields, and heavy-headed axes. Plates of wrought steel and 
iron, to make the gallant horse a monster cased in metal 
scales; and one spring weapon (easy to be carried in the 
breast) designed to do its office noiselessly, and made for 
shooting men with poisoned darts. 

One press or case I saw full of accursed instruments of 
torture: horribly contrived to cramp, and pinch, and grind, 
and crush men's bones, and tear and twist them with the tor- 
ment of a thousand deaths. Before it were two iron helmets, 
with breast-pieces; made to close up tight and smooth upon 
the heads of living sufferers; and fastened on to each was a 
small knob or anvil, where the directing devil could repose 
his elbow at his ease, and listen, near the walled-up ear, to 
the lamentations and confessions of the wretch within. 



io VENICE 

There was that grim resemblance in them to the human 
shape — they were such moulds of sweating faces, pained and 
cramped — that it was difficult to think them empty; and 
terrible distortions lingering within them seemed to follow 
me, when, taking to my boat again, I rowed off to a kind of 
garden or public walk in the sea, where there were grass and 
trees. But I forgot them when I stood upon its furthest 
brink — I stood there in my dream — and looked, along the 
ripple, to the setting sun; before me, in the sky and on the 
deep, a crimson flush ; and behind me the whole city resolving 
into streaks of red and purple on the water. 

In the luxurious wonder of so rare a dream, I took but 
little heed of time, and had but little understanding of its 
flight. But there were days and nights in it ; and when the 
sun was high and when the rays of lamps were crooked in the 
running water, I was still afloat, I thought; plashing the 
slippery walls and houses with the cleavings of the tide, as 
my black boat, borne upon it, skimmed along the streets. 

Sometimes alighting at the doors of churches and vast 
palaces, I wandered on, from room to room, from aisle to 
aisle, through labyrinths of rich altars, ancient monuments; 
decayed apartments where the furniture, half awful, half 
grotesque, was moulding away. Pictures were there, replete 
with such enduring beauty and expression : with such passion, 
truth, and power: that they seemed so many young and fresh 
realities among a host of spectres. I thought these often 
intermingled with the old days of the city ; with its beauties, 
tyrants, captains, patriots, merchants, courtiers, priests: nay, 



AN ITALIAN DREAM n 

with its very stones, and bricks, and public places; all of 
which lived again, about me, on the walls. Then, coming 
down some marble staircase where the water lapped and 
oozed against the lower steps, I passed into my boat again, 
and went on in my dream. 

Floating down narrow lanes, where carpenters, at work 
with plane and chisel in their shops, tossed the light shaving 
straight upon the water, where it lay like weed, or ebbed 
away before me in a tangled heap. Past open doors, decayed 
and rotten from long steeping in the wet, through which 
some scanty patch of vine shone green and bright, making 
unusual shadows on the pavement with its trembling leaves. 
Past quays and terraces, where women, gracefully veiled, 
were passing and repassing, and where idlers were reclining 
in the sunshine, on flagstones and on flights of steps. Past 
bridges, where there were idlers too; loitering and looking 
over. Below stone balconies, erected at a giddy height, before 
the loftiest windows of the loftiest houses. Past plots of 
garden, theatres, shrines, prodigious piles of architecture — 
Gothic — Saracenic — fanciful with all the fancies of all times 
and countries. Past buildings that were high, and low, and 
black, and white, and straight, and crooked; mean and 
grand, crazy and strong. Twining among a tangled lot of 
boats and barges, and shooting out at last into a Grand 
Canal ! There, in the errant fancy of my dream, I saw old 
Shylock passing to and fro upon a bridge, all built upon with 
shops and humming with the tongues of men; a form I 
seemed to know for Desdemona's, leaned down through a 



1 2 VENICE 

latticed blind to pluck a flower. And, in the dream, I 
thought that Shakespeare's spirit was abroad upon the water 
somewhere; stealing through the city. 

At night, when two votive lamps burned before an image 
of the Virgin, in a gallery outside the great cathedral, near 
the roof, I fancied that the great piazza of the Winged Lion 
was a blaze of cheerful light, and that its whole arcade was 
thronged with people; while crowds were diverting them- 
selves in splendid coffee-houses opening from it — which were 
never shut, I thought, but open all night long. When the 
bronze giants struck the hour of midnight on the bell, I 
thought the life and animation of the city were all centred 
here; and as I rowed away, abreast the silent quays, I only 
saw them dotted, here and there, with sleeping boatmen 
wrapped up in their cloaks, and lying at full length upon the 
stones. 

But, close about the quays and churches, palaces and 
prisons: sucking at their walls, and welling up into the secret 
places of the town: crept the water always. Noiseless and 
watchful: coiled round and round it, in its many folds, like 
an old serpent : waiting for the time, I thought, when people 
should look down into its depths for any stone of the old city 
that had claimed to be its mistress. 

Thus it floated me away, until I awoke in the old Market- 
place at Verona. I had many and many a time, thought 
since of this strange Dream upon the water: half wondering 
if it lie there yet, and if its name be Venice. 



ORIGIN OF VENICE 

GRANT ALLEN 

THE very name of Venezia, or Venice, by which we 
now know the city of the lagoons, is in its origin 
the name, not of a town, but of a country. Upon 
the proper comprehension of this curious fact depends a 
proper comprehension of much that is essential in the early 
history of the city and of the Republic. 

The rich and fertile valley of the Po had for its com- 
mercial centre from a very remote period the town of 
Mediolanum or Milan. But its port for the time being, 
though often altered, lay always on the Adriatic. That sea 
derives its name, indeed, from the town of Hatria (later 
corrupted into Adria), which was the earliest centre of the 
Po valley traffic. Hatria and its sister town of Spina, how- 
ever, gave way in imperial Roman times to Padua, and again 
in the days of the lower empire to Aquileia, near Trieste, 
and to Altinum, on the mainland just opposite Torcello. 
Padua in particular was a very prosperous and populous 
town under the early emperors ; it gathered into itself the sur- 
plus weath of the whole Po valley. 

The district between Verona and the sea, known to the 
Romans as Venezia, seems in the most ancient times of which 
we have any record to have been inhabited by an Etruscan 
population. Later, however, it was occupied by the Veneti, 

13 



H VENICE 

an Illyrian tribe, whose name still survives in that of Venice 
and in the district known as II Veneto. But much Etruscan 
blood must have remained in the land even after their 
conquest: and it is doubtless to this persistent Etruscan 
element that the Venetians owe their marked artistic faculty. 
The country of the Veneti was assimilated and Romanised 
(by nominal alliance with Rome), in the third century before 
Christ. Under the Romans, Venetia, and its capital Padua, 
grew extremely wealthy, and the trade of the Lombard plain 
(as we now call it), the ancient Gallia Cisalpina, was con- 
centrated on this district. 

The Po and the other rivers of the sub-Alpine region bring 
down to the Adriatic a mass of silt, which forms fan-like 
deltas, and spreads on either side of the mouth in belts or 
bars (the Lido), which enclose vast lagoons of shallow 
water. These lagoons consist near the mainland of basking 
mudbanks, more or less reclaimed, and intersected by natural 
or artificial canals; further out towards the bars, or Lidi, 
they deepen somewhat, but contain in places numerous low 
islands. During the long troubles of the barbaric irruptions, 
in the Fourth, Fifth and subsequent centuries, the ports of 
the lagoons, better protected both by land and sea than those 
of the Po, began to rise into comparative importance; on the 
south Ravenna, on the north Altinum, acquired increased 
commercial value. The slow silting up of the older har- 
bours, as well as the dangers of the political situation, brought 
about in part this alteration in mercantile conditions. 

When Attila and his Huns invaded Italy in 453, they 




PALAZZO DARIO 



ORIGIN OF VENICE 15 

destroyed Padua, and also Altinum ; and though we need not 
suppose that those cities thereupon ceased entirely to exist, 
yet it is at least certain that their commercial importance 
was ruined for the time being. The people of Altinum took 
refuge on one of the islands in the lagoon, and built Tor- 
cello, which may thus be regarded in a certain sense as the 
mother-city of Venice. Subsequent waves of conquest had 
like results. Later on, in 568, the Lombards, a German 
tribe, invaded Italy, and completed the ruin of Padua, 
Altinum and Aquileia. The relics of the Romanised and 
Christian Veneti then fled to the islands, to which we may 
suppose a constant migration of fugitives had been taking 
place for more than a century. The Paduans, in particular, 
seem to have settled at Malamocco. The subjected main- 
land became known as Lombardy, from its Germanic con- 
querors, and the free remnant of the Veneti, still bearing their 
old name, built new homes on the flat islets of Rivo Alto, 
Malamocco and Torcello, which were the most secure from 
attack in their shallow Waters. This last fringe of their 
territory they still knew as Venetia or Venezia ; the particu- 
lar island, or group of islands, on which modern Venice 
now stands, bore simply at that time its original name of 
Rivo Alto, or Rialto, that is to say, the Deep Channel. 

The Romanised semi-Etruscan Christian Republic of 
Venezia seems from the very first to have been governed by 
a Dux or Doge (that is to say, Duke), in nominal subjec- 
tion to the Eastern Emperor at Constantinople. The Goth 
and the Lombard, the Frank and the Hun, never ruled this 



1 6 VENICE 

last corner of the Roman world. The earliest of the Doges 
whose name has come down to us was Paulucius Anafestus, 
who is said to have died in 716, and whose seat of govern- 
ment seems to have been at Torcello. Later, the Doge 
of the Venetians apparently resided at Malamocco, a town 
which no longer exists, having been destroyed by submer- 
gence, though part of the bank of the Lido opposite still 
retains its name. Isolated in their island fastnesses, the 
Venetians, as we may now begin to call them, grew rich 
and powerful at a time when the rest of Western Europe 
was sinking lower and lower in barbarism; they kept up 
their intercourse with the civilised Roman east in Constan- 
tinople, and also with Alexandria (the last then Mohamme- 
danised), and they acted as intermediaries between the Lom- 
bard Kingdom and the still Christian Levant. When 
Charlemagne in the Eighth Century conquered the Lombards 
and founded the renewed (Teutonic) Roman Empire of 
the West, the Venetians, not yet established in modern 
Venice, fled from Malamocco to Rivo Alto to escape his 
son, King Pepin, whom they soon repelled from the lagoons. 
About the same time they seem to have made themselves 
practically independent of the eastern empire, without be- 
coming a part of the western and essentially German one 
of the Carlovingians. Not long after, Malamocco was 
deserted, partly no doubt owing to the destruction by Pepin, 
but partly also perhaps because it began to be threatened with 
submergence: and the Venetians then determined to fix their 
seat of government on Rivo Alto, or Rialto, the existing 



ORIGIN OF VENICE 17 

Venice. For a long time the new town was still spoken 
of as Rialto, as indeed a part of it is by its own inhabitants 
to the present day; but gradually the general name of Vene- 
zia, which belonged properly to the entire Republic, grew 
to be confined in usage to its capital, and most of us now 
know the city only as Venice. 

Pepin was driven off in 809. The Doge's Palace was 
transferred to Rialto, and raised on the site of the exist- 
ing building (according to tradition) in 819. Angelus 
Participotius was the first Doge to occupy it. From that 
period forward to the French Revolution, one palace after 
another housed the Duke of the Venetians on the same site. 
This was the real nucleus of the town of Venice, though the 
oldest part lay near the Rialto bridge. Malamocco did not 
entirely disappear, however, till 1 107. The silting up of 
the harbour of Ravenna, the chief port of the Adriatic in 
late Roman times, and long an outlier of the Byzantine 
empire, contributed greatly, no doubt, to the rise of Venice: 
while the adoption of Rivo Alto with its deep navigable 
channel as the capital marks the gradual growth of an ex- 
ternal commerce. 

The Republic which thus sprang up among the islands 
of the lagoons was at first confined to the little archipelago 
itself, though it still looked upon Aquileia and Altinum as its 
mother cities, and still acknowledged in ecclesiastical mat- 
ters the supremacy of the Patriarch of Grado. After the 
repulse of King Pepin, however, the Republic began to 
recognise its own strength and the importance of its posi- 



1 8 VENICE 

tion, and embarked slowly at first, on a career of commerce 
and then of conquest. Its earliest acquisitions of territory 
were on the opposite Slavonic coast of Istria and Dalmatia; 
gradually its trade with the east led it, at the beginning of 
the Crusades, to acquire territory in the Levant and the 
Greek Archipelago. This eastern extension was mainly due 
to the conquest of Constantinople by Doge Enrico Dandolo 
during the Fourth Crusade (1204), an epoch-making event 
in the history of Venice which must constantly be borne 
in mind in examining her art-treasures. The little outlying 
western dependency had vanquished the capital of the Chris- 
tian Eastern Empire to which it once belonged. The great- 
ness of Venice dates from this period; it became the chief 
carrier between the east and the west; its vessels exported 
the surplus wealth of the Lombard plain, and brought in 
return, not only the timber and stone of Istria and Dal- 
matia, but the manufactured wares of Christian Constan- 
tinople, the wines of the Greek isles, and the oriental silks, 
carpets and spices of Mohammedan Egypt, Arabia and Bag- 
dad. The Crusades, which impoverished the rest of Europe, 
doubly enriched Venice: she had the carrying and trans- 
port traffic in her own hands; and her conquests gave her 
the spoil of many eastern cities. 

It is important to bear in mind, also, that the Venetian 
Republic (down to the French Revolution), was the one 
part of western Europe which never at any time formed 
a portion of any Teutonic Empire, Gothic, Lombard, Frank, 
or Saxon. Alone in the west, it carried on unbroken the 



ORIGIN OF VENICE 19 

traditions of the Roman empire, and continued its cor- 
porate life without Teutonic adulteration. Its peculiar posi- 
tion as the gate between the east and west made a deep im- 
press upon its arts and its architecture. The city remained 
long in friendly intercourse with the Byzantine realm; and 
an oriental tinge is thus to be found in all its early buildings 
and mosaics. St. Mark's in particular is based on St. Sophia 
at Constantinople; the capitals of its columns in both are 
strikingly similar; even Arab influence and the example of 
Cairo (or rather of early Alexandria), are visible in many 
parts of the building. Another element which imparts 
oriental tone to Venice is the number of imported works of 
art from Greek churches. Some of these the Republic 
frankly stole; others it carried away in good faith during 
times of stress to prevent them from falling into the hands 
of the Mohammedan conquerors. The older part of Venice 
is thus to some extent a museum of applied antiquities; the 
bronze horses from Constantinople over the portal of St. 
Mark's, the pillars of St. John of Acre on the south facade ; 
the Greek lions of the Arsenal, the four porphyry emperors 
near the Doge's palace are cases in point; and similar in- 
stances will meet the visitor everywhere. Many bodies of 
Greek or eastern saints were also carried off from Syria 
or Asia Minor to preserve them from desecration at the 
hands of the infidel ; and with these saints came their legends, 
unknown elsewhere in the west; so that the mosaics and 
sculptures based on them give a further note of orientalism 
to much of Venice. It may also be noted that the intense 



20 VENICE 

Venetian love of colour, and the eye for colour which accom- 
panies it, are rather eastern than western qualities. This 
peculiarity of a pure colour-sense is extremely noticeable 
both in Venetian architecture and Venetian painting. 

The first Venice with which the traveller will have to deal 
is thus essentially a Romanesque-Byzantine city. It rose 
during the decay of the Roman empire, far from barbaric 
influences. Its buildings are Byzantine in type; its mosaics 
are mostly the work of Greek or half-Greek artists; its 
Madonnas and saints are Greek in aspect; and even the 
very lettering of the inscriptions is in Greek, not in Latin. 
And though ecclesiastically Venice belonged to the western 
or Roman church, the general assemblage of her early saints 
(best seen in the Atrium and Baptistery of St. Mark's), is 
thoroughly oriental. We must remember that during all 
her first great period she was connected by the sea with 
Constantinople and the east, but cut off by the lagoons and 
the impenetrable marshes from all intercourse with Teu- 
tonised Lombardy and the rest of Italy. In front lay her 
highway; behind lay her moat. At this period, indeed, 
it is hardly too much to say that (save for the accident 
of language), Venice was rather a Greek than an Italian 
city. 

I strongly advise the tourist, therefore, to begin by form- 
ing a clear conception of this early Greekish Venice of the 
Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, and 
then go on to observe how the later Italianate Venice grew 
slowly out of it. Mediaeval Italy was not Roman but Teu- 



ORIGIN OF VENICE 21 

tonised: influences from the Teutonic Italy were late in 
affecting the outlying lagoon-land. 

The beginnings of the change came with the conquests 
of Venice on the Italian mainland. Already Gothic art 
from the west had feebly invaded the Republic with the rise 
of the great Dominican and Franciscan churches (San 
Giovanni e Paolo and the Frari) : the extension of Venice 
to the west, by the conquest of Padua and Verona (1405) 
completed the assimilation. Thenceforward the Renaissance 
began to make its mark on the city of the lagoons, though 
at a much later date than elsewhere in Italy. I recom- 
mended the visitor accordingly, after he has familiarised 
himself with Byzantine Venice, to trace the gradual en- 
croachment of Gothic arty and then the Renaissance move- 
ment. 

It is best, then to begin with the architecture, sculpture, 
and mosaics of St. Mark's; in connection with which the 
few remaining Byzantine palaces ought to be v examined. 
The Byzantine period is marked by the habit of sawing up 
precious marbles and other coloured stones (imported 
for the most part from earlier eastern buildings), and using 
them as a thin veneer for the incrustation of brick buildings ; 
also, by the frequent employment of decorations made by 
inserting ancient reliefs in the blank walls of churches or 
houses. The eastern conquests of Venice made oriental 
buildings a quarry for her architects. The Gothic period 
is marked by a peculiar local style, showing traces of Byzan- 
tine and Arab influence. The early Renaissance work at 



22 VENICE 

Venice is nobler and more dignified than elsewhere in Italy. 
The baroque school of the Seventeenth Century, on the 
other hand is nowhere so appalling. 

Venice was essentially a commercial Republic. Her great- 
ness lay in her wealth. She flourished as long as she was 
the sole carrier between east and west; she declined rapidly 
after the discovery of America, and of the route to India 
round the Cape of Good Hope, which made the Atlantic 
supersede the Mediterranean as the highway of the nations. 
As Antwerp, Amsterdam and London rose, Venice fell. 
The re-opening of the Mediterranean route by the con- 
struction of the Suez Canal has galvanised her port into 
a slightly increased vitality of recent years; but she is still 
in the main a beautiful fossil-bed of various strata, extend- 
ing from the Tenth to the Seventeenth Centuries. 

Whoever enters Venice by rail at the present day ought 
to bear in mind that he arrives (across the lagoon), by the 
back door. The front door was designed for those who 
came by sea; there, Venice laid herself out to receive them 
with fitting splendour. The ambassadors or merchants 
who sailed up the navigable channel from the mouth of the 
Lido, saw first the Piazza, the Piazzetta, the two great 
granite columns, the campanile, St. Mark's, and the im- 
posing facade of the Doge's Palace, reinforced at a later 
date by the white front of San Giorgio Maggiore and the 
cupolas of the Salute. This, though not perhaps the oldest 
part of the town, is the nucleus of historical Venice; and to 
it the traveller should devote the greater part of his atten- 



ORIGIN OF VENICE 23 

tion. I strongly advise those whose stay is limited not to 
try to see all the churches and collections of the city, but 
to confine themselves strictly to St. Mark's, the Doge's 
Palace, the Academy, the Four Great Plague-Churches, and 
the tour of the Grand Canal, made slowly in a gondola. 

Those who have three or four weeks at their disposal, 
however, ought early in their visit to see Torcello and Mu- 
rano — Torcello, as perhaps the most ancient city of the 
lagoons, still preserved for us in something like its antique 
simplicity, amid picturesque desolation; Murano, as helping 
us to reconstruct the idea of Byzantine Venice. It is above 
all things important not to mix up in one whirling picture 
late additions like the Salute and the Ponte di Rialto with 
early Byzantine buildings like St. Mark's or the Palazzo 
Loredan, with Gothic architecture like the Doge's Palace, 
or the Ca' d' Oro, and with Renaissance masterpieces, like 
the Libreria Vecchia, or the ceilings of Paolo Veronese. 
Here more than anywhere else in Europe, save at Rome 
alone, though chronological treatment is difficult, a strictly 
chronological comprehension of the various stages of growth 
is essential to a right judgment. 

Walk by land as much as possible. See what you see 
in a very leisurely fashion. Venice is all detail; unless you 
read the meaning of the detail, it will be of little use to 
you. Of course the mere colour and strangeness and pic- 
turesqueness of the water-city are a joy in themselves; but 
if you desire to learn, you must be prepared to give many 
days to St. Mark's alone, and to examine it slowly. 



24 VENICE 

The patron saints of Venice are too numerous to cata- 
logue. A few need only be borne in mind by those who 
pay but a short visit of a month or so. The Venetian 
fleets in the early ages brought home so many bodies of saints 
that the city became a veritable repository of holy corpses. 
First and foremost, of course, comes St. Mark, whose name, 
whose effigy, and whose winged lion occur everywhere in 
the city; to the Venetian of the Middle Ages, he was almost, 
indeed, the embodiment of Venice. He sleeps at St. Mark's. 
The body of St. Theodore, the earlier patron, never entirely 
dispossessed, lay in the Scuola (or Guild), of St. Theodore, 
near the church of San Salvatore (now a furniture shop). 
But the chief subsidiary saints of later Venice were St. 
George and St. Catharine, patrons of the territories of 
the Republic to the first of whom many churches are dedi- 
cated, while the second appears everywhere on numerous 
pictures and reliefs. The great plague saints are Sebastian, 
Roch and Job. These seven the tourist must remember 
and expect to recognise at every turn in his wanderings. 
The body of St. Nicholas, the sailor's saint, lay at San 
Niccolo di Lido, though a rival body, better authenticated 
or more believed in, was kept at Bari. 

The costume of the Doges, and the Doge's cap; the 
Venetian type of Justice, with sword and scales; the almost 
indistinguishable figure of Venezia, also with sword and 
scales, enthroned between lions;' and many like local alle- 
gories or symbols, the visitor should note and try to under- 
stand from the moment of his arrival. 



VENICE AND ROME 

JOHN RICHARD GREEN 

IT is the strangeness and completeness of the contrast 
which makes one's first row from Venice to Torcello 
so hard to forget. Behind us the great city sinks 
slowly into a low line of domes and towers; around us, 
dotted here and there over the gleaming surface, are the 
orange sails of trailing market boats; we skirt the great 
hay-barges of Mazarbo, whose boatmen bandy lazzi and 
badinage with our gondolier; we glide by a lonely cypress 
into a broader reach and, in front, across a waste of brown 
sedge and brushwood, the tower of Torcello rises sharply 
against the sky. There is something weird and unearthly 
in the suddenness with which one passes from the bright, 
luminous waters of the lagoon, barred with soft lines of 
violet light and broken with reflections of wall and bell- 
tower, into this presence of desolation and death. A whole 
world seems to part those dreary flats broken with lifeless 
inlets, those patches of sodden fields flung shapelessly among 
sheets of sullen water from the life and joy of the Grand 
Canal. And yet, really to understand the origin of Venice, 
those ages of terror and flight and exile in which the Republic 
took its birth, we must study them at Torcello. It was 
from the vast Alpine chain, which hangs in the haze of mid- 
day like a long, dim cloud-line to the north, that the hordes 

25 



26 VENICE 

of Hun and Goth burst on the Roman world. Their path 
lay along the coast, trending round to the west, where, 
lost among little villages that stand out white in the distant 
shadow, lie the sites of Heraclea and Altinum. Across 
these grey shallows, cut by the blue serpentine windings 
of deeper channels, the Romans of the older province of 
Venetia on the mainland fled before Attila or Theodoric 
or Alboin, to found the new Venetia of the lagoon. East- 
ward, over Lido, the glimmer of the Adriatic recalls the 
long centuries of the Pirate War, that struggle for life 
which shaped into their after-form the government and 
destinies of the infant State. Venice itself, the crown and 
end of struggle and of flight, lies, over shining miles of 
water, to the south. But it is here that one can best study 
the story of its birth; it is easier to realise those centuries 
of exile and buffeting for life amidst the dreary flats, the 
solitude, the poverty of Torcello, than beneath the gleam- 
ing front of the Ducal Palace or the mosaics of St. Mark. 
Here, in fact, lies the secret of Venetian history, the one 
key by which it is possible to understand the strange riddle 
of the Republic. For thirteen centuries Venice lay moored, 
as it were, off the coast of Western Europe, without politi- 
cal analogue or social parallel. Its patriciate, its people, its 
government, were not what government or people or patri- 
ciate were in other countries of Western Christendom. The 
difference lay not in any peculiar institutions which it had 
developed, or in any novel form of social or administrative 
order which it had invented, but in the very origin of the 



VENICE AND ROME 27 

state itself. We see this the better if we turn from Venice 
to our own homeland. The same age saw the birth of the 
two great maritime powers of modern Europe; for the 
settlements of the English in Britain cover the same cen- 
tury with those of the Roman exiles in the Venetian lagoon. 
But the English colonisation was the establishment of a 
purely Teutonic state on the wreck of Rome, while the 
Venetian was the establishment of a purely Roman state 
in the face of the Teuton. Venice, in its origin, was simply 
the imperial province of Venetia floated across to the islands 
of the shore. Before the successive waves of the Northern 
inroad, the citizens of the coast fled to the sand-banks which 
had long served them as gardens or merchant-ports. The 
" Chair of Atilla," the rough stone seat beside the Church 
of San Fosco, preserves the memory of one destroyer before 
whom a third part of the people of Altinum fled to Tor- 
cello and the islands around. Their city — even materially 
— passed with them. The new houses were built from 
ruins of the old. The very stones of Altinum served for 
the " New Altinum " which arose on the desolate isle, and 
inscriptions, pillars, capitals came, in the track of the exiles 
across the lagoon, to be worked into the fabric of its 
cathedral. 

Neither citizens nor city was changed even in name. 
They had put out, for security, a few miles to sea, but the 
sand-banks on which they landed were still Venetia. The 
fugitive patricians were neither more nor less citizens of 
the imperial province because they had fled from Padua or 



28 VENICE 

Altinum or Malamocco or Torcello. Their political alle- 
giance was still due to the Empire. Their social organi- 
sation remained unaffected by the flight. So far were they 
from being severed from Rome, so far from entertaining 
any dreams of starting afresh in the " new democracy " 
which exists in the imagination of Daru and his followers, 
that the one boast of their annalists is that they are more 
Roman than the Romans themselves. Their nobles looked 
with contempt on the barbaric blood which had tainted 
that of the Colonnas or the Orsini; nor did any Isaurian 
peasant ever break the Roman line of doges as Leo broke 
the line of Roman emperors. Venice — as she proudly 
styled herself in aftertime — was " the legitimate daughter 
of Rome." The strip of sea-board from the Brenta to the 
Isonzo was the one spot in the Empire, from the Caspian 
to the Atlantic, where foot of barbarian never trod. And 
as it rose, so it set. From that older world of which it 
was a part, the history of Venice stretched on to the French 
Revolution, untouched by Teutonic influences. The old 
Roman life, which became strange even to the Capitol, 
lingered, unaltered, unimpaired, beside the palace of the 
duke. The strange ducal cap, the red ducal slippers, the 
fan of bright feathers borne before the ducal chair, all 
came unchanged from ages when they were the distinctions 
of every great officer of the Imperial State. It is startling 
to think that almost within the memory of living men 
Venice brought Rome — the Rome of Ambrose and Theo- 
dosius — to the very doors of the Western world; that the 



VENICE AND ROME 29 

living and unchanged tradition of the Empire passed away 
only with the last of the doges. On the tomb of Manin 
could men write truthfully, " Hie jacet ultimus Roman- 
orum." 

It is this simple continuance of the old social organisa- 
tion, which the barbarians elsewhere overthrew, that ex- 
plains the peculiar character of the Venetian patriciate. In 
all other countries of the West, the new feudal aristocracy 
sprung from the Teutonic invaders. In Italy itself, the nobles 
were descendants of Lombard conquerors, or of the barons 
who followed emperor after emperor across the Alps. Even 
when their names and characters had alike been moulded 
into Southern form, the " Seven Houses " of Pisa boasted 
of their descent from the seven barons of Emperor Otto. 
But the older genealogies of the senators, whose names 
stood written in the Golden Book of Venice, ran, truly or 
falsely, not to Teutonic, but to Roman origins. The Par- 
ticipazzii, the Dandoli, the Falieri, the Foscari, told of the 
flight of their Roman fathers before the barbarian sword 
from Pavia, Gaeta, Fano, Messina. Every quarter of Italy 
had given its exiles, but, above all, the coast round the head 
of the Gulf from Ravenna to Trieste. It was especially 
a flight and settlement of nobles. As soon as the barbaric 
hordes had swept away to the South, the farmer or the 
peasant would creep back to his fields and his cabin, and 
submit to the German master whom the conquest had left 
behind it. But the patrician had filled too great a place 
in the old social order to stoop easily to the new. He 



30 VENICE 

remained camped as before in the island-refuge, among a 
crowd of dependents, his fishermen, his dock-labourers. 
Throughout the long ages which followed this original form 
of Venetian society remained unchanged. The populace 
of dependents never grew into a people. To the last, fisher- 
man and gondolier clung to the great houses of which they 
were the clients, as the fishers of Torcello had clung to 
the great nobles of Altinum. No difference of tradition 
or language or blood parted them. Tradition, on the con- 
trary, bound them together. No democratic agitator could 
appeal from the present to the past, as Rienzi invoked the 
memories of the Tribunate against the feudal tyranny of 
the Colonnas. In Venice the past and present were one. 
The patrician of Venice simply governed the State as his 
fathers, the curials of Padua or Aquileia, had governed the 
State ten centuries before him. 

It is this unity of Venetian society which makes Venetian 
history so unlike the history of other Italian towns, and to 
which Venice owes the peculiar picturesqueness and bright- 
ness which charm us still in its decay. Elsewhere the his- 
tory of mediaeval Italy sprung from the difference of race 
and tradition between conquered and conquerors, between 
Lombard noble and Italian serf. The communal revolt of 
the Twelfth Century, the democratic constitution of Milan 
or of Bologna, were in effect a rising of race against race, 
the awakening of a new people in the effort to throw off 
the yoke of the stranger. The huge embattled piles which 
flung their dark shadows over the streets of Florence tell 



VENICE AND ROME 31 

of the ceaseless war between baronage and people. The 
famous penalty by which some of the democratic communes 
condemned a recreant cobbler or tinker to " descend," as 
his worse punishment, " into the order of the noblesse" 
tells of the hate and issue of the struggle between them. 
But no trace of a struggle or hate breaks the annals of 
Venice. There is no people, no democratic Broletto, no 
Hall of the Commune. And as there was no " people," 
so in the mediaeval sense of the word there was no " baron- 
age." The nobles of Venice were not Lombard barons, 
but Roman patricians, untouched by feudal traditions, or 
by the strong instinct of personal independence which 
created feudalism. The shadow of the Empire is always 
over them ; they look for greatness not to independent power 
or strife, but to joint co-operation in the government of the 
State. Their instinct is administrative; they shrink from 
disorder as from a barbaric thing; they are citizens, and 
nobles only because they are citizens. Of this political atti- 
tude of its patricians, Venice is itself the type. The pal- 
aces of Torcello or Rialto were houses not of war but of 
peace; no dark masses of tower and wall, but bright with 
marbles and frescoes, and broken with arcades of fretted 
masonry. 

Venice, in a word, to her very close was a city of nobles, 
the one place in the modern world where the old sena- 
torial houses of the Fifth Century lived and ruled as of 
old. But it was a city of Roman nobles. Like the Teutonic 
passion for war, the Teutonic scorn of commerce was strange 



32 VENICE 

and unknown to the curial houses of the Italian munici- 
palities, as it had been strange and unknown to the greatest 
houses of Rome. The senator of Padua or Aquileia, of 
Concordia, Altinum, or Ravenna, had always been a mer- 
chant, and in his new refuge he remained a merchant still. 
Venice was no " crowd of poor fishermen," as it has 
been sometimes described, who were gradually drawn to 
wider ventures and a larger commerce. The port of Aqui- 
leia had long been the emporium of a trade which reached 
northward to the Danube and eastward to Byzantine. What 
the Roman merchants of Venetia had been at Aquileia, they 
remained at Grado. The commerce of Altinum simply 
transferred itself to Torcello. The Paduan merchants 
passed to their old port of Rialto. Vague and rhetorical 
as is the letter of Cassiodorus, it shows how keen was the 
mercantile activity of the State from its beginning. 
Nothing could be more natural, more continuous in its his- 
torical development; nothing was more startling, more in- 
comprehensible to the new world which had grown up in 
German moulds. The nobles of Henry VIII. 's court could 
not restrain their sneer at " the fishermen of Venice," the 
stately patricians who could look back from merchant noble 
to merchant noble through ages when the mushroom houses 
of England were unheard of. Only the genius of Shake- 
speare seized the grandeur of a social organisation which 
was still one with that of Rome and Athens and Tyre. The 
merchant of Venice is with him " a royal merchant." His 
" argosies o'ertop the petty traffickers." At the moment 



VENICE AND ROME 33 

when feudalism was about to vanish away, the poet com- 
prehended the grandeur of that commerce which it scorned, 
and the grandeur of the one State which had carried the 
nobler classic tradition across ages of brutality and ignor- 
ance. The great commercial state whose merchants are 
nobles, whose nobles are Romans, rises in all its majesty 
before us in the Merchant of Venice. 



THE CITY OF THE LAGOONS 

JOHN RUSKIN 

IN the olden days of travelling, now to return no more, 
in which distance could not be vanquished without 
toil, but in which that toil was rewarded, partly by 
the power of deliberate survey of the countries through which 
the journey lay, and partly by the happiness of the evening 
hours, when, from the top of the last hill he had surmounted, 
the traveller beheld the quiet village where he was to rest, 
scattered among the meadows beside its valley stream; or, 
from the long hoped for turn in the dusty perspective of 
the causeway, saw, for the first time, the towers of some 
famed city, faint in the rays of sunset — hours of peaceful 
and thoughtful pleasure, for which the rush of the arrival 
in the railway station is perhaps, not always, or to all 
men an equivalent, — in those days, I say, when there was 
something more to be anticipated and remembered in the 
first aspect of each successive halting-place, than a new 
arrangement of glass roofing and iron girder, there were 
few moments of which the recollection was more fondly 
cherished by the traveller than that which brought him 
within sight of Venice, as his gondola shot into the open 
lagoon from the canal of Mestre. Not but that the aspect 
of the city itself was generally the source of some slight 
disappointment, for, seen in this direction, its buildings 
are far less characteristic than those of the other great 

34 



THE CITY OF LAGOONS 35 

towns of Italy; but this inferiority was partly disguised by 
distance, and more than atoned for by the strange rising 
of its walls and towers out of the midst, as it seemed, of 
the deep sea, for it was impossible that the mind or eye 
could at once comprehend the shallowness of the vast sheet 
of water which stretched away in leagues of rippling lustre 
to the north and south, or trace the narrow line of islets 
bounding it to the east. The salt breeze, the white moan- 
ing sea-birds, the masses of black weed separating and dis- 
appearing gradually, in knots of heaving shoal, under the 
advance of the steady tide, all proclaimed it to be indeed 
the ocean on whose bosom the great city rested so calmly; 
not such blue, soft, lake-like ocean as bathes beneath the 
Neapolitan promontories, or sleeps beneath the marble rock 
of Genoa, but a sea with the bleak power of our own north- 
ern waves, yet subdued into a strange spacious rest, and 
changed from its angry pallor into a field of burnished gold, 
as the sun declined behind the belfry tower of the lonely 
island church, fitly named " St. George of the Seaweed." 
As the boat drew nearer to the city, the coast which the 
traveller had just left sank behind him into one long, low, 
sad-coloured line, tufted irregularly with brushwood and 
willows: but, at what seemed its northern extremity, the 
hills of Arqua rose in a dark cluster of purple pyramids 
balanced on the bright mirage of the lagoon; two or three 
smooth surges of inferior hill extended themselves about 
their roots, and beyond these, beginning with the craggy 
peaks above Vicenza, the chain of the Alps girded the whole 



3 6 VENICE 

horizon to the north, a wall of jagged blue here and there 
showing through its clefts a wilderness of misty precipices, 
fading far back into the recesses of Cadore, and itself ris- 
ing and breaking away eastward, where the sun struck 
opposite upon its snow, into mighty fragments of peaked 
light, standing up behind the barred clouds of evening, one 
after another, countless, the crown of the Adrian Sea, until 
the eye turned back from pursuing them, to rest upon the 
nearer burning of the campaniles of Murano, and on the 
great city, where it magnified itself along the waves, as 
the quick silent pacing of the gondola drew nearer and 
nearer. And at last, when its walls were reached, and the 
outermost of its untrodden streets was entered, not through 
towered gate or guarded rampart, but as a deep inlet be- 
tween two rocks of coral in the Indian Sea; when first upon 
the traveller's sight opened the long ranges of columned 
palaces, — each with its black boat moored at the portal, — 
each with its image cast down, beneath its feet, upon that 
green pavement which every breeze broke into new fan- 
tasies of rich tesselation; when first, at the extremity of the 
bright vista, the shadowy Rialto threw its colossal curve 
slowly forth from behind the Palace of the Camerlenghi; 
that strange curve, so delicate, so adamantine, strong as 
a mountain cavern, graceful as a bow just bent; when first, 
before its moonlike circumference was all risen, the gon- 
dolier's cry, "Ah! Stall," struck sharp upon the ear, and 
the prow turned aside under the mighty cornices that half 
met over the narrow canal, where the plash of the water 



THE CITY OF LAGOONS 37 

followed close and loud, ringing along the marble by the 
boat's side; and when at last that boat darted forth upon 
the breadth of silver sea, across which the front of the 
Ducal Palace, flushed with its sanguine veins, looks to the 
snowy dome of Our Lady of Salvation, 1 it was no marvel 
that the mind should be so deeply entranced by the vision- 
ary charm of a scene so beautiful and so strange, as to forget 
the darker truths of its history and its being. Well might 
it seem that such a city had owed her existence rather to the 
rod of the enchanter, than the fear of the fugitive; that 
the waters which encircled her had been chosen for the 
mirror of her state, rather than the shelter of her naked- 
ness; and that all which in nature was wild or merciless, 
— Time and Decay, as well as the waves and tempests, — 
had been won to adorn her instead of to destroy, and might 
still spare, for ages to come, that beauty which seemed to 
have fixed for its throne the sands of the hour-glass as well 
as of the sea. 

And although the last few eventful years, fraught with 
change to the face of the whole earth, have been more fatal 
in their influence on Venice than the five hundred that pre- 
ceded them; though the noble landscape of approach to her 
can now be seen no more, or seen only by a glance, as the 
engine slackens its rushing on the iron line; and though 
many of her palaces are forever defaced, and many in dese- 
crated ruins, there is still so much of magic in her aspect, 
that the hurried traveller, who must leave her before the 
wonder of that first aspect has been worn away, may still 
1 Santa Maria della Salute. 






3 8 VENICE 

be led to forget the humility of her origin, and to shut 
his eyes to the depth of her desolation. They, at least, are 
little to be envied, in whose hearts the great chanties of 
the imagination lie dead, and for whom the fancy has no 
power to repress the importunity of painful impressions, or 
to raise what is ignoble, and disguise what is discordant, 
in a scene so rich in its remembrances, so surpassing in its 
beauty. But for this work of imagination there must be no 
permission during the task which is before us. The im- 
potent feelings of romance, so singularly characteristic of 
this century, may indeed gild, but never save the remains of 
those mightier ages to which they are attached like climbing 
flowers; and they must be torn away from the magnificent 
fragments, if we would see them as they stood in their own 
strength. Those feelings, always as fruitless as they are 
fond, are in Venice not only incapable of protecting, but 
even of discerning, the objects to which they ought to have 
been attached. The Venice of modern fiction and drama is 
a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of decay, a stage 
dream which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into 
dust. No prisoner, whose name is worth remembering, 
or whose sorrow deserved sympathy, ever crossed that 
" Bridge of Sighs," which is the centre of the Byronic 
ideal of Venice; no great merchant of Venice ever saw that 
Rialto under which the traveller now passes with breath- 
less interest: the statue which Byron makes Faliero address 
as one of his great ancestors was erected to a soldier of fortune 
a hundred and fifty years after Faliero's death; and the 



THE CITY OF LAGOONS 39 

most conspicuous parts of the city have been so entirely 
altered in the course of the last three centuries, that if 
Henry Dandolo or Francis Foscari could be summoned 
from their tombs, and stood each on the deck of his galley 
at the entrance of the Grand Canal, that renowned en- 
trance, the painter's favourite subject, the novelist's favour- 
ite scene, where the water first narrows by the steps of the 
Church of La Salute, — the mighty Doges would not know 
in what spot of the world they stood, would literally not 
recognise one stone of the great city, for whose sake, and 
by whose ingratitude, their grey hairs had been brought 
down with bitterness to the grave. The remains of their 
Venice lie hidden behind the cumbrous masses which were 
the delight of the nation in its dotage ; hidden in many a 
grass-grown court, and silent pathway, and lightless canal, 
where the slow waves have sapped their foundations for five 
hundred years, and must soon prevail over them for ever. 
It must be our task to glean and gather them forth, and 
restore out of them some faint image of the lost city; more 
gorgeous a thousand fold than that which now exists, yet 
not created in the day-dream of the prince, nor the osten- 
tation of the noble, but built by iron hands and patient 
hearts, contending against the adversity of nature and the 
fury of man, so that its wonderfulness cannot be grasped 
by the indolence of imagination, but only after frank in- 
quiry into the true nature of that wild and solitary scene, 
whose restless tides and trembling sands did indeed shelter 
the birth of the city, but long denied her dominion. 



4 o VENICE 

From the mouths of the Adige to those of the Piave there 
stretches, at a variable distance of from three to five miles 
from the actual shore, a bank of sand, divided into long 
islands by narrow channels of sea. The space between this 
bank and the true shore consists of the sedimentary de- 
posits from these and other rivers, a great plain of calcare- 
ous mud, covered, in the neighbourhood of Venice, by the 
sea at high water, to the depth in most places of a foot or 
a foot and a half, and nearly everywhere exposed at low tide, 
but divided by an intricate network of narrow and wind- 
ing channels, from which the sea never retires. In some 
places, according to the run of the currents, the land has 
risen into marshy islets, consolidated, some by art and some 
by time, into ground firm enough to be built upon, or fruit- 
ful enough to be cultivated; in others, on the contrary, 
it has not reached the sea level; so that, at the average low 
water, shallow lakelets glitter among its irregularly ex- 
posed fields of seaweed. In the midst of the largest of these, 
increased in importance by the confluence of several large 
river channels towards one of the openings in the sea bank, 
the city of Venice itself is built, on a crowded cluster of 
islands; the various plots of higher ground which appear 
to the north and south of this central cluster, have at dif- 
ferent periods been also thickly inhabited, and now bear, 
according to their size, the remains of cities, villages, or 
isolated convents and churches, scattered among spaces of 
open ground, partly waste and encumbered by ruins, partly 
under cultivation for the supply of the metropolis. 



THE CITY OF LAGOONS 41 

The average rise and fall of the tides is about three feet 
(varying considerably with the seasons) ; but this fall, on 
so flat a shore, is enough to cause continual movement in 
the waters, and in the main canals to produce a reflux which 
frequently runs like a mill-stream. At high water no land 
is visible for many miles to the north or south of Venice, 
except in the form of small islands crowned with towers 
or gleaming with villages: there is a channel, some three 
miles wide, between the city and the mainland, and some 
mile and a half wide between it and the sandy breakwater 
called the Lido, which divides the lagoon from the Adriatic, 
but which is so low as hardly to disturb the impression of 
the city's having been built in the midst of the ocean, 
although the secret of its true position is partly, yet not 
painfully, betrayed by the clusters of piles set to mark the 
deep-water channels, which undulate far away in spotty 
chains like the studded backs of huge sea-snakes, and by the 
quick glittering of the crisped and crowded waves that 
flicker and dance before the strong winds upon the unlifted 
level of the shallow sea. But the scene is widely different 
at low tide. A fall of eighteen or twenty inches is enough 
to show ground over the greater part of the lagoon; and at 
the complete ebb the city is seen standing in the midst of 
a dark plain of seaweed, of gloomy green, except only where 
the larger branches of the Brenta and its associated streams 
converge towards the port of the Lido. Through this salt 
and sombre plain the gondola and the fishing-boat advance 
by tortuous channels, seldom more than four or five feet 



42 VENICE 

deep, and often so choked with slime that the heavier keels 
furrow the bottom till their crossing tracks are seen through 
the clear sea water like the ruts upon a wintry road, and 
the oar leaves blue gashes upon the ground at every stroke, 
or is entangled among the thick weed that fringes the banks 
with the weight of its sullen waves, leaning to and fro upon 
the uncertain sway of the exhausted tide. The scene is 
often profoundly oppressive, even at this day, when every 
plot of higher ground bears some fragment of fair build- 
ing: but, in order to know what it was once, let the traveller 
follow in his boat at evening the windings of some unfre- 
quented channel far into the midst of the melancholy plain; 
let him remove, in his imagination, the brightness of the 
great city that still extends itself in the distance, and the 
walls and towers from the islands that are near; and so wait, 
until the bright investiture and sweet warmth of the sunset 
are withdrawn from the waters, and the black desert of 
their shore lives in its nakedness beneath the night, pathless, 
comfortless, infirm, lost in dark languor and fearful silence, 
except where the salt rivulets plash into the tideless pools, 
or the sea-birds flit from their margins with a questioning 
cry; and he will be enabled to enter in some sort into the 
horror of the heart with which this solitude was anciently 
chosen by man for his habitation. They little thought, 
who first drove the stakes into the mud, and strewed the 
ocean reeds for their rest, that their children were to be 
the princes of that ocean, and their palaces its pride; and 
yet, in the great natural laws that rule that sorrowful 



THE CITY OF LAGOONS 43 

wilderness, let it be remembered what strange preparation 
had been made for the things which no human imagination 
could* have foretold, and how the whole existence and for- 
tune of the Venetian nation were anticipated or compelled, 
by the setting ok those bars and doors to the rivers and the 
sea. Had deeper currents divided their islands, hostile 
navies would again and again have reduced the rising city 
into servitude; had stronger surges beaten their shores, all 
the riches and refinement of the Venetian architecture 
must have been exchanged for the walls and bulwarks of 
an ordinary sea-port. Had there been no tide, as in other 
parts of the Mediterranean, the narrow canals of the city 
would have become noisome, and the marsh in which it was 
built pestiferous. Had the tide been only a foot or eighteen 
inches higher in its rise, the water-access to the doors of the 
palaces would have been impossible; even as it is, there is 
sometimes a little difficulty, at the ebb, in landing without 
setting foot upon the lower and slippery steps: and the 
highest tides sometimes enter the courtyards, and overflow 
the entrance halls. Eighteen inches more of difference be- 
tween the level of the flood and ebb would have rendered 
the doorsteps of every palace, at low water, a treacherous 
mass of weeds and limpets, and the entire system of water- 
carriage for the higher classes, in their easy and daily inter- 
course, must have been done away with. The streets of 
the city would have been widened, its network of canals 
filled up, and all the peculiar character of the place and the 
people destroyed. 



44 VENICE 

The reader may perhaps have felt some pain in the 
contrast between this faithful view of the site of the 
Venetian Throne, and the romantic conception of it»which 
we ordinarily form; but this pain, if he have felt it, ought 
to be more than counterbalanced by the value of the 
instance thus afforded to us at once of the inscrutableness 
and the wisdom of the ways of God. If, two thousand 
years ago, we had been permitted to watch the slow settling 
of the slime of those turbid rivers into the polluted sea, 
and the gaining upon its deep and fresh waters of the life- 
less, impassable, unvoyageable plain, how little could we 
have understood the purpose with which those islands were 
shaped out of the void, and the torpid waters enclosed with 
their desolate walls of sand! How little could we have 
known, any more than of what now seems to us most dis- 
tressful, dark, and objectless, the glorious aim which was 
then in the mind of Him in whose hand are all the corners 
of the earth! how little imagined that in the laws which 
were stretching forth the gloomy margins of those fruit- 
less banks, and feeding the bitter grass among their shallows, 
there was indeed a preparation, and the only preparation 
possible, for the founding of a city which was to be set like 
a golden clasp on the girdle of the earth, to write her his- 
tory on the white scrolls of the sea-surges, and to word it 
in their thunder, and to gather and give forth, in world- 
wide pulsation, the glory of the West and of the East, from 
the burning heart of her Fortitude and Splendour. 



THE LAGOONS 

HORATIO F. BROWN 

THE lagoons of Venice are a large basin, covering 
an area of one hundred and eighty-four square 
miles, and composed of shoal banks, intersected 
in all directions by deep channels. The form of the lagoons, 
roughly speaking, is that of a bent bow, a segment of a 
circle and the line that cuts it. The curved line follows 
the shore of the mainland; the straight line is composed of 
a number of long narrow islands, or lidi, which close the 
lagoons on the sea side, and shut out the Adriatic. It is 
these lidi, these sandy islands which are the important fact 
in the structure of the lagoons; without them the lagoons 
would not exist, and their surface would simply be added 
to the sea, which, in that case, would find its real shore 
not, as at present, on the outer side of these islands, but 
upon the mainland itself. 

The lagoons are the result of overflowing by the sea 
and by the rivers which used to discharge their waters into 
them. But partly to avoid the danger from spring and 
autumn floods, partly on account of the malaria produced 
by the mingling of salt water and fresh, the Sile and Piave 
were connected at their mouths, and now empty themselves 
directly into the sea. The Brenta alone sends very con- 
siderable volume of fresh water into the lagoon. It is from 

45 



46 VENICE 

the Adriatic that these waters come which twice a day flood 
all the shallows of this basin, and sweep through the canals 
of Venice, cleansing the water streets, and performing the 
task of " pure ablution," round her ancient walls. 

The lidi are not only intimately connected with the origin 
and general structure of the lagoons, but they are now the 
bulwark of Venice against the sea. That narrow strip of 
sandy dune, never more than half a mile in width, alone 
stands between Venice and the Adriatic, which would other- 
wise break in upon the lagoons and sweep the city down. 
When the sirocco is thundering on the sands of the Lido, 
and its boom is borne high in the air, one cannot help 
picturing the ruin that would follow should the slender 
barrier of sand give way beneath the battery of the stormy 
sea. Once or twice the sea has broken through this frail 
defence, and threatened the city; and almost the last im- 
portant work undertaken by the Republic was the fortifica- 
tion of the lidi, at their weakest points by the Murazzi, 
great sea-walls, some formed by rough blocks of Istrian 
stone piled anyhow along the shore, others built up of 
solid and cemented masonry. 

The lagoon of Venice is not a semi-stagnant marsh, but a 
water basin where the activity of the currents and tides is un- 
ceasing. Nor is the lagoon, in spite of its apparent unity, 
to be considered as one large tidal lake. It is, in fact, a 
complex of four water systems, quite distinct from one 
another, each with its main channels and tributary streams. 

It is the lidi that determine this peculiar internal struc- 



THE LAGOONS 47 

ture of the lagoon basin, which distinguishes it from other 
bodies of water, and makes it neither marsh nor lake nor sea, 
but something different from any of these. In the line of 
the lidi there are four breaches or ports, which give passage 
to the water between the lagoon and the open sea; they are 
the ports of Chioggia, Malamocco, Lido, and Tre Porti. 
There used to be a fifth, the port of Sant' Erasmo, but that 
was closed in 1474, in order to increase the volume of water 
at the Lido port. Only a very small body of water now 
passes through its mouth; and for all purposes of under- 
standing the internal economy of the lagoons, we have to 
deal with the four ports above mentioned. It is through 
these four mouths that the sea comes flooding in upon the 
lagoons at the flow, and passes out at the ebb ; and it is upon 
these ports that the whole system of currents and tides, 
which vivify the lagoons, is dependent. 

The surface of the lagoons is traversed by five main chan- 
nels, or water highways; and all of them centre in Venice. 
The course of these channels is marked by groups of posts, 
driven into the mud at regular intervals. But besides these 
principal thoroughfares there is a network of smaller canals, 
many of them ending nowhere, lost in the shoals, undis- 
tinguished by any sign-posts and known only to fishermen, 
smugglers, and those who have the practice of the lagoons. 
The five main channels are — first, that of the Lido, familiar 
to every one who knows Venice; it conducts to the sea by 
way of San Nicoletto and Sant' Andrea. This was the 
great port of the Venetian Republic. By the Lido mouth 



48 VENICE 

her galleys sailed to war; her argosies came laden home, and, 
every festival of the Ascension, the Doge in the Bucentoro 
passed out to wed the Adriatic. The great eastern canal 
leads by Murano, Burano, Mazzorbo, and Torcello to the 
mainland near Altino. The northern channel, between 
Mestre and Venice, was once the usual approach to the sea- 
city before the railway bridge was built. A fourth canal leads 
to Fusina, also on the mainland, where the Brenta, or rather 
part of the Brenta, flows into the lagoon. And last, and 
most important of all, there is the canal to Malamocco and 
Chioggia, by which all the large shipping reaches Venice, 
now that the older port of the Lido has been allowed to silt 
up. Any one who wishes to see the lagoons might do worse 
than take these five canals in turn. From each of them he 
would obtain a different view of Venice, a fresh idea of the 
singular foundations from which the city rises, a varied 
composition of campanili and domes against the constant 
background of sky and Alps. 

There are few great surfaces of water which are as sensi- 
tive as the lagoons of Venice. And this sensitiveness is the 
cause of constant change, change which surprises even those 
who know the lagoons best. The picturesque charm of the 
lagoon resides in its two main features — the water and sky; 
and the secret of their fascination is their endless variety 
secured by the vastness of the space which they include. The 
city itself and its attendant isles are always present, like the 
gems that grace the setting ; but the setting changes infinitely, 
The islands and the stationary Alps that bound the vision, 



THE LAGOONS 49 

alone remain immovable; all else in the landscape of the 
lagoons is shifting continually. 

In the water there is the perpetual flux and reflux of the 
tides in endless operation; now revealing large tracts of 
green or brown upon the shoals, now cloaking all beneath 
one wide unbroken mantle of grey sea. The colour of the 
water surface itself is continually undergoing a prismatic 
change. The prevailing tone is grey, but grey of every hue 
— grey haze suffused by the low winter sun, blue grey, grey 
warmed with yellow or with pink, soft and delicious, the 
result of sirocco grey that is hard and cold under the sun 
or pure and silvery white beneath the moon. Grey is the 
dominant tone of colour, but at sunset and sunrise, there are 

ison, of orange, of 
possible to discover 
is more certain and 

Not only on the water surface is there manifold change, 
but the same is happening hourly in the water body ; the one 
is felt in the wide sweep of vision over the lagoon level, the 
other in the minute section which lies below our boat. These 
changes of tone in the water body depend upon action of 
wind, tide, and weather. If the sirocco has stirred the sands 
on the Lido, then the incoming tide will be opaquely green 
and mottled here and there with yellow stains such as are 
sometimes seen in jade; or if the sea be calm, the flowing 
tide will sweep through the canals clear and pale as aqua- 
marine, or clear and dark as the rare stone, the tourmaline. 



So VENICE 

The prevailing tone upon the water surface is grey, the pre- 
vailing tone in the water body is green. And if that green 
be transparent, the forestry of water-weeds which clothe 
the bed of the lagoon, with all its finny denizens, the waver- 
ing of the seaweed tips beneath the current, the variety of 
colour upon the long streamers, make the few square feet 
below the boat as beautiful to contemplate as all the 
miles of water surface that stretch away on every side. 

But the sky, even more than the water, is the glory of the 
Venetian lagoon. Nowhere, except at sea, could the eye 
master so vast an arc. And thus there is laid open to the 
contemplation nature busied in various occupations, for what 
is going on in the far east stands apart from that which 
engages wind and sunshine in the west; and sea and moun- 
tains, to the south and north, have different tasks allotted 
them. The heavens display the manifold workmanship of 
nature in unceasing activity. The clouds, moulded at their 
borders by the opposing atmosphere, mass their domes and 
pinnacles and mountainous buttresses under the compulsion 
of some internal force desiring to expand, until their edges 
are frayed and torn, and the storm-clouds burst and sweep 
across the sky. The premonition of the coming wind is 
given by the lifted clouds upon the far horizon, the long 
straight line below, the billowing vanguard above, as the 
whole cloud-wall is buoyed and driven before the gale. 
There are quiet skies, with fields of pearly grey and cirrus 
flecked above the tranquil misty veils that part and leave 
interspaces of pure blue. There are the thunder-clouds that 



THE LAGOONS 51 

hang upon the hills and cool and melt away as night wears 
on. Above all there is the splendour of Venetian sunsets, and 
more especially the stormy ones, outflaming any painters 
canvas. The ominous masses of dun cloud, blown from the 
eastward; the rainbow that rises and spans the city, high 
and brilliant against sombre clouds urged so violently for- 
ward by the wind that their foremost battalions curve like 
the arc of a bow, and are kindled to tawny purple by the 
setting sun. Then the bursting of the storm; the riving of 
the cloud strata revealing behind them steel-blue layers, and 
further still behind, a hand's breadth of serene blue sky. 
And all the while the sun is going down, to westward in 
heavens that are calm and suffused with limpid golden 
light, unheeding of the tempest that sweeps towards the hills. 
These operations of nature are so immense and so aloof, 
that personal human emotion seems to fall away before them, 
retiring to the vanishing point, and the spirit is left naked and 
alone, facing the radical forces of the universe. 



I..* GONDOLA 

THEOPHILE GAUTIER 

THE gondola has suffered much abuse in comic 
opera, novels and romances. That is no reason 
why it should not be better known. We will 
give a detailed description of it. The gondola is a natural 
production of Venice, an animated being with a special and 
local life, a kind of fish that can exist only in the water of a 
canal. The lagoon and the gondola are inseparable, and one 
is the complement of the other. Without the gondola, 
Venice 
mollusc 
out am 
the aqu 

The narrow and long gondola, raised at both ends, and 
drawing little water, has the form of a skate. Its prow is 
armed with a flat and polished piece of iron which vaguely 
recalls the curved neck of a swan, or rather the neck of a 
violin with its pegs. Six teeth, the interstices of which are 
sometimes filled with pierced work, contribute to this re- 
semblance. This piece of iron serves for decoration, for 
defense and for counterpoise, the craft being more heavily 
weighted behind. On the bulwark of the gondola, close to 
the prow and the stern, are fixed two pieces of wood, curved 
like ox-horns, in which the gondolier rests his oar while he 

52 



THE GONDOLA 53 

stands on a little platform with his heel wedged in a little 
socket. The whole visible gondola is coated with tar, or 
painted black. A more or less rich carpet covers the bottom. 
In the centre, the cabin is placed, the jelce, which is easily 
removed if we want to substitute an awning, a modern 
degeneracy at which every good Venetian groans. The jelce 
is entirely made of black cloth and furnished with two soft 
cushions covered with morocco of the same hue, back to 
back; moreover, there are two bracket seats at the sides 
so that it will accommodate four. On each lateral face 
two windows are pierced. These are usually left open, but 
may be closed in three ways: first, by a bevelled square 
of Venetian glass, or a frame with flowers cut in the 
crystal ; secondly, by a Venetian slat blind, so as to see with- 
out being seen ; and thirdly, by a cloth shade, over which, for 
the sake of more mystery, one can lower the outside covering 
of the jelce. These different systems of blind slide in a 
transverse groove. The door, by which we enter backwards, 
since it would be difficult to turn around in this narrow 
space, has simply a window and a panel. The wooden por- 
tion is carved with more or less elegance according to the 
wealth of the owner, or the taste of the gondolier. On the 
left doorcase shines a copper shield surmounted by a crown. 
Here one has one's arms or monogram engraved. Above it 
a little frame with a glass contains the image for which 
the host or the gondolier cherishes a special devotion: the 
Holy Virgin, St. Mark, St. Theodore, or St. George. 

It is on that side also that the lantern is fixed, a custom 



54 VENICE 

that is somewhat falling into disuse, for many gondolas are 
navigated without having this star on their brow. Because 
of the coat-of-arms, the saint and the lantern, the left is the 
place of honour; it is there that women, and aged or impor- 
tant persons sit. At the back, a movable panel enables one 
to speak to the gondolier posted on the stern, the only one 
who really manages the boat, his paddle being an oar and a 
rudder at the same time. Two cords of silk with two 
handles help you to rise when you want to go out, for the 
seats are very low. The cloth of the felce is embellished on 
the outside by tufts of silk similar to those of priests' hoods, 
and when we want to shut ourselves up completely, it falls 
over the back of the cabin like too long a pall over a 
coffin. To conclude the description, let us say that on the 
inside of the bulwarks a sort of arabesque in white is traced 
upon the black ground of the wood. All this has not a great 
air of gaiety; and yet, if we may believe Lord Byron's 
Beppo, as amusing scenes take place in these black gondolas 
as in funeral coaches. Madame Malibran, who did not 
like to go into these little catafalques, unsuccessfully tried 
to get their hue altered. This tint, which strikes us as 
lugubrious, does not seem so to the Venetians, who are ac- 
customed to black by the sumptuary edicts of the ancient 
republic, and among whom the water hearses, mutes and 
shrouds are red. 



THE OUTER RIM 

WILLIAM SHARP 

NO one to whom Venice means something more 
than a merely unique city because of its water- 
ways, a place of resort because to go there is one 
of the things to do, could spend any length of time within 
its magic influence without visiting, or at least endeavouring 
to visit, two places that once rivalled the " sea-queen " herself 
in stir of life and natural beauty. One of these is Chioggia, 
many miles to the south, past the islands of S. Lazzaro and S. 
Spirito, past La Grazia and Poveglia, past Malamocco and 
low-lying Pelestrina, past those three miles of great walls of 
Istrain stone, those murazzi which, like the dykes of Holland, 
offer an unvanquished front to the tidal rush and ceaseless 
wash of the sea. Venice is discrowned, if not of all her 
beauty, at least of her ancient power, her long-surviving 
splendour; but Chioggia is more than discrowned — she is 
humbled like a slave that can never again escape from the 
slough of long degradation. The fate of Tyre is better: no 
longer to see the galleys of the East and the Phoenician ships 
pass by in disdain, but to have perished and be as utterly 
unknown as the golden Ophir of still more ancient days. 
Visiting Chioggia, one sees a deserted and decayed town, a 
listless fisherfolk, indolent women who have yet, here and 
there, something of that typical Venetian beauty beloved of 

55 



56 VENICE 

Titian and Paul Veronese ; and one cannot well refrain from 
thinking that that terrible six months' duel, that life-and- 
death struggle between the Republics of St. George and St. 
Mark, which took place five hundred years ago, exhausted 
for ever the vital energy of this southern Venice. The con- 
quering foot of Daria, and the relentless grip of Pisani, must 
between them have left Chioggia with small remnant of its 
pristine power. 

But six miles north of the Lion of St. Mark, amid shallow 
and sluggish lagoons, lies the dead body of a city greater 
than Chioggia, — Torcello, the " mother of Venice." 
Scarcely, indeed, can it be said that even the dead body of 
what was once a populous town still rests here; it is as 
though only a few bleached bones yet lay exposed to the 
scorching sun of summer, to the salt and bitter sea-winds of 
winter, to the miasmic mists of desolate autumn. Habita- 
tions there are none: only the deserted fanes of Santa Fosca 
and the Duomo, a lifeless Palazzo Pubblico, a lonely and 
silent Campanile. In the words of Ruskin, these " lie like a 
little company of ships becalmed on a far-away sea." 

The day was an exceptionally bright one, warm, but not 
oppressive, with a cool wind that blew joyously without be- 
coming too fresh for pleasant sailing in the open lagoons to 
the north ; then we had gone by a longer way for the sake of 
the pleasure of such voyaging — eastward past S. Maria della 
Salute, and close under the shadows of the great church 
upon the Isola di S. Giorgio Maggiore, with the busy Riva 
degli Schiavoni on our left reaching on to the green and 



THE OUTER RIM 57 

practically deserted promontory of the Public Gardens. 
Then rounding the Punta della Motta, our gondolier rowed 
us swiftly northward amid the unique loveliness of the 
Venetian lagoons. 

A soft sirocco blew, not indeed with that virulent breath 
from the south-east, which the term is apt to suggest, but still 
with such enervating mildness as to determine us to reach our 
destination by the shortest way possible. We soon found 
ourselves gliding past the Campo S. Angelo, then into the 
Grand Canal once more by the timeworn Palazzo Corner 
Spinelli, past the Palazzi Grimani, Bembo, and Manin, 
under the Rialto, and so out again into the open — after 
gliding through many narrow canals, and rounding in some 
magic way seemingly impossible corners — out beyond the 
Fondamenta Nuova, with the great square opening of the 
Lucca della Misericordia on our left. On the right we leave 
behind us a square white house, as lovely in appearance, and 
as deserted in actual fact, as though it stood in the midst of 
the rank swamps of the Laguna Morta to the south of Fusina. 
This is the Casa degli Spiriti, a place of ghostly repute, where 
no Italian would rest overnight on any consideration. For 
in this " House of Spirits," it was once the custom to leave 
the coffined dead over night, interment taking place next day 
at the neighbouring island of San Michele. No wonder 
this half-way house between the living and the dead should 
remain uninhabited, retaining as it does in the imagination 
of the Venetians an unpleasant savour of the supernatural. 

As we were swiftly urged upon our way, had it not been 



58 VENICE 

for the stalwart figure of Luigi in the forepart of the gon- 
dola, we might have imagined we were drifting through the 
Sea of the Magic Isles, that all before us was as unreal as 
the mirage that with its illusive beauty haunts at times the 
weary gaze upon inland seas of sand. More fair, indeed, 
than any mirage was the scene that we beheld ; yet wonder- 
fully mirage-like was it by reason of the palpitating haze 
that dwelt like the visible breath of the sirocco upon main- 
land, isle and lagoon. 

Far to the right some thickly clustered and windless trees 
rose from the quivering sea-line, or rather seemed to hover 
just above the lagoon, — the acacias, namely, in whose 
shadowy mist the Fort of S. Nicolo guards the " Gates of 
the Lido." Northwest of this dimly defined island-wood we 
espied Sant' Elena and San Michele; in the lee of the 
latter three funeral gondolas skirting the high wall that pro- 
tects the graves from the imperative tides; while before us 
lay Murano, a denser and darker mist above it from the 
furnaces of the glass manufactories, for which it is so famous. 
Northwestward we looked towards Mestre, and south- 
ward from thence along the Laguna Morta towards Fusina 
— a long line of shadowy trees apparently rising from the 
sea, with spaces here and there between as though a slow 
tide were imperceptibly rising and flooding a long strip of 
land, at intervals dinted with hollows already washed over 
by the grey-green water. The silvery sirocco mist hid from 
us the shapes of Alps to the north, or Euganeans to the west. 
We could just descry, indeed, that part of the Laguna 



THE OUTER RIM 59 

Morta which stretches from beneath the long railway-bridge 
towards Fusina — those low banks of slimy ooze or mud, 
which collectively are called the " Dead Lagoon," a strange 
and desolate region haunted only by the sea-mew, the wild 
snipe, and the bittern, the newt that loves the slimy ooze, 
and the sea-adder amongst the rank grasses that rise from the 
shallow brackish water clarified by no urgent tide. 

As we left Murano behind us, and glided along the grey- 
green of the open lagoon between it and Burano, still more 
did the fancy grow upon us that we were adrift upon dream- 
land waters, and it was difficult to tell, looking around and 
beyond us, where the sea-line and sky-line met, for the 
breath of the sirocco made sea and sky, islands and shadowy 
trees and dim mainland outlines alike unsubstantial. That 
a change was more or less imminent, even if we had not 
heard Luigi draw Francesco's attention to the fact, we both 
ere long perceived, for at frequent intervals a sudden but 
transitory shimmer quivered in the misty atmosphere to the 
north, seemingly, as though behind a veil of silvery gauze 
a current of air were passing by. Now and again the 
shrouded sun seemed to gather fresh power, and to lighten 
for a few minutes with its dimly diffused gleams the strange 
scene, wholly aerial in appearance that met our gaze. It was 
in some such vivifying interval as this that we passed the 
islands of Burano and Mazzorbo, and saw before us the 
dreary and desolate shores of Torcello. Looking backward 
we saw the lagoons shining with a dull metallic glitter, and 
the intense heat brooding in haze upon distant Venice, and, 



60 VENICE 

like a mirage within a mirage, the islanded coast-line of the 
Laguna Morta from Mestre to Fusina shining dimly blue 
above the intensely bright but sparkless silver of the inflowing 
tide. 

When our gondola glided alongside of the wave-worn and 
irregular stones that form the pier, and we stepped from it on 
to the salt grasses that lead up to the so-called piazza, we 
again realised to the full the absoluteness of the sense of 
desolation. When we had last been at Torcello, there had 
been some cattle in the green meadow beyond the Duomo, 
tended by a dark-haired shepherd youth, who seemed some- 
thing between a water-god, a faun, and a young David ; but 
now no living thing met our gaze, save a sea-bird that 
screamed harshly as it rose from a reedy morass and sailed 
round and round the lonely square tower of the Campanile. 
The soft lapping of the water against the gondola and faint 
rustle of the tide against the numerous marshy inlets ac- 
centuated instead of relieving the deathly stillness. 

We ascended the Campanile, though as far as my friend 
was concerned there was no longer any necessity to sketch 
elsewhere than in the meadows at our feet. But neither by 
words nor the painter's brush could the ever-varying and 
ever-wonderful beauty and strangeness of the scene be ad- 
quately rendered, nor would it be easy to say what times and 
seasons surpass each other in supreme fascination — probably 
in the hour of sunset in summer with a breeze from the 
north, and the atmosphere intensely clear ; or at moonrise in 
August or September, when the skies above are of deepest 



THE OUTER RIM 61 

purple, and the planets and stars are like gold lamps and 
silver-shining globes, and over the stagnant morasses wander- 
ing marsh-lights flit to-and-f ro like the ghosts of those deadly 
fires which so long ago embraced in a long death-agony the 
cities of Altinum and Aquileia, whose neighbouring sites now 
abide in the same desolation as Torcello. 

But even in the misty noon of this day of our visit, the 
beauty was at once memorable and strangely impressive. 
Below us were the salt creeks and dreary morasses of the 
Torcellan shore, the Duomo, the ancient church of Santa 
Fosca, and the anything but palatial Palazzo Pubblico; 
beyond these, occasional short meadows of brilliant green, 
with purple orchis and tall gamboge-tinted hellebore, and 
even some sprays of pink gladiolus interspersed among the 
seeded grasses, and at frequent intervals upon the sandy 
ridges small bands of poppies ; beyond these ridges again the 
misty blue of the Adriatic washing onward past the long line 
of Malamocco. To the north and west we could just 
descry the dim outlines of the Friulian Alps and the shadowy 
Euganeans; while southward in every direction the wings of 
the sirocco spread a silvery haze, through whose shifting veil 
glimpses only at intervals were to be caught of the domes and 
palaces of Venice, the islands of Burano, Murano, San 
Michele, Sant' Elena, and the wooded promontory of San 
Nicoletto — to the west, Mestre and the unreal islands 
beyond the Canale di Brenta. 

Later on we sought that rough stone seat which legend 
declares, on very dubious grounds, to have been the throne of 



62 VENICE 

Attila when he watched the blaze of burning Altinum red- 
dening the sky. Here my friend sketched, and so the pleas- 
ant and dreamy hours passed on till late in the afternoon. 
Suddenly a lark's song rose clear and strong, like a swift 
uprising fountain in a desert place; and, looking up to 
descry the welcome singer, I noticed that the wind had fallen 
wholly from its previous slight breath to absolute stillness. 

" And skyward yearning from the sea there rose, 
And seaward yearning from the sky there fell, 
A spirit of deep content unspeakable." 

— William Watson. 

In a few minutes, like a mist before sunrise, the silvery 
gauze of the sirocco gradually dispelled or retreated, first 
leaving Venice clear in the golden sunlight, then the blue 
waters of the lagoon to the west of the Lido of Sant' Elisa- 
betta, and then finally passed away by the sea-washed 
Malamocco, along the distant narrow strand of Pelestrina, 
and onwards towards unseen Chioggia thirty miles or more 
away to the south. 

As we left Torcello, already looking far more desolate, 
and almost as though it were awakening from a dream, a 
cool slight wind from the far-off Carnic Alps stole forth, and 
by the time that Burano was passed the deep blue waters 
were here and there curled with white foam, lightly tossed 
from short wave to wave. As Murano came under our lee, 
about half a mile to the east, we saw Venice as she can only 
be seen half a dozen times in a year. Each dome and palace 



THE OUTER RIM 63 

and fretted spire was outlined in purple-black against a cir- 
cumambient halo of wild-rose pink, shading to a gorgeous 
carmine, and thence to an undescribably soft and beautiful 
crimson; through these, great streaks and innumerable islets 
of translucent amethyst spread and shone, while every here 
and there bars and narrow shafts of absolute gold pierced the 
azure and purple and crimson, like promontories in a rain- 
bow-coloured sea. As these again, like fronds of a gigantic 
fan, six or seven great streamers of pale saffron stretched 
from the setting sun to the depths of the sky, and it seemed 
for a moment as though the whole visible world, without 
motion, without sound, were dissolving away in a glory and 
splendour of light and ineffable colour. 



THE TRAGHETTI 

HORATIO F. BROWN 

THE traghetti of Venice, the ferries that cross the 
Grand Canal, or ply from point to point on the 
Giudecca, are a feature no less peculiar to the city 
than are the gondolas themselves, and they are quite as an- 
cient. There are as many as sixteen of the ferries across the 
Grand Canal and the Giudecca: and each of them has its 
own history, its own archives and documents. For from its 
foundation each traghetto was a guild, a close corporation 
with a limited number of members, with its own particular 
rules, or mariegole, inscribed on parchment, in Gothic char- 
acters, " lettere di forma," as the gondoliers called them, and 
adorned with capitals painted in vermilion, and here and 
there an illuminated page showing the patron saint of the 
traghetto, or the Assumption of Madonna into heaven. The 
mariegole of the various traghetti, in their old Venetian bind- 
ings of morocco and gold, may still be seen in the archives 
of the Frari: and a singular fascination attaches to the 
ancient, time-stained parchment which contains the history 
of that system of self-government which was developed by 
the gondoliers during five centuries of Venetian story, and 
whose rules are expresssed in rich and vigorous dialect. The 
earliest of these mariegole belongs to the traghetto of Santa 
Sofia, near the Rialto, and dates from the year 1344: the 

64 



THE TRAGHETTI 65 

traghetto itself, however, was probably much older. Yet 
the same regulations and customs which governed the gon- 
doliers in the Fourteenth Century, hold good in the Nine- 
teenth. A traghetto of to-day closely resembles a traghetto 
of 1300, though the years have overlaid its lines with dust: 
it is still a corporation, with property and endowments of its 
own: the same officers, under the same titles, still keep 
order among the brothers: only the whole institution has a 
somewhat ancient air, is marred by symptoms of decay, and 
we fear that it may not last much longer. Indeed, the his- 
tory and internal arrangement of the traghetti offer the best 
example of that which makes the subject of gondolier life 
interesting to the student of antiquity: for the traghetti are, 
in fact, a genuine part of the Venetian Republic imbedded in 
United Italy; a fossil survival unique in the history of the 
country, and perhaps in that of the world. 

The date at which the first traghetto was established, that 
is when the gondoliers plying for hire first formed them- 
selves into a guild at their ferry, is not known: but such a 
guild was certainly in existence before the middle of the 
Fourteenth Century. A corporation of this nature was 
called a scuola at Venice: and from the very first these 
schools of the gondoliers were of a religious character, ded- 
icated to a patron saint, and in close connection with the 
church of the parish where the ferry was situated. This is 
the way in which the scuola of Santa Maria Zobenigo opens 
its book of rules: 

" In the name of God, the Eternal Father, and of His Son 



66 VENICE 

Misser Jesu Cristo, and of His glorious mother, the Virgin 
Mary, and of the thrice-blessed patron Misser San MarcOj 
and of Misser San Gregorio, who are the guardians of us the 
boatmen at the traghetto of San Gregorio and Santa Maria 
Zobenigo: may they help each and all of us brothers to live 
in fear of the Lord God and with peace and brotherly love 
between us, first in health and prosperity and then to salva- 
tion of our souls and the remission of our sins." And in 
their parish church the brothers of each scuola had a special 
place appointed for them, usually under the organ, where 
they sat in a body on Sundays, their officers at the head of 
each bench. The first section of the rules which governed 
the schools invariably applies to Church observance : " The 
school pledges itself to keep a lamp burning day and night 
before the altar. . . . Every second Sunday in the 
month they shall cause a solemn mass to be sung. . . . 
Every Monday an ordinary mass. . . . Every brother 
shall be obliged to confess twice a year, or at least once, and 
if, after a warning, he remain impenitent he shall be ex- 
pelled. A brother who made the pilgrimage to Loretto, for 
the good of his soul, or of his body, was entitled to one cen- 
tesimo a day while his journey lasted." Those brothers 
who " continue to live publicly in any deadly sin, shall be 
admonished, and expelled unless they amend." The fines 
for disobedience and quarrelsomeness were " applicate alia 
Madonna," that is, they formed a fund for keeping an oil 
lamp burning at the shrine of the Madonna, " per luminar la 
Madonna." And the first fare taken at the traghetto each 



THE TRAGHETTI 67 

morning was dedicated to the same purpose and was called 
the " parada della Madonna." 

The advantages conferred by these schools were so con- 
siderable and so obvious that, not only did every traghetto 
established one, but other classes of boatmen — the burchieri, 
or bargees, for example — applied for leave to found a school. 
The petition of the burchieri is a curious document. It is 
addressed to the Council of Ten, and sets forth that " this 
glorious lagoon is constantly in need of dredging, and should 
Your Excellencies grant out prayer, you will always have 
barges at your disposal for this purpose. Moreover, if we 
be allowed to found a school, we shall put an end to the dirt 
and noise on the Grand Canal under your windows. And 
we promise to pay eighty ducats yearly to the Water Com- 
missioners. And, on the festival of the Ascension, we will 
make a triumph with our barges, to accompany the Doge 
when he goes to wed the sea." 

There is a fact about the nationality of the gondoliers in 
the Fifteenth Century which is worth noticing in passing. 
From the lists of the members of each traghetto, it appears 
that less than half were natives of Venice. Some hail from 
Treviso, from Ravenna, Padua, Bergamo, Brescia, or 
Vicenza; very many from Salo, on the lake of Garda; but 
by far the largest number come from the Dalmatian coast, 
from Sobenico, Zara, Segna, Traii, Spalato. A century 
later, these foreign names had disappeared. The gondoliers 
had either become, for the most part, Venetians proper, or, 
more probably, the foreign names had been dropped, as the 



68 VENICE 

families took root in their new home. However that may 
be, the men who first established these schools with their 
admirable system of government, were chiefly foreigners and 
not Venetians. 

Every gondolier who worked at a traghetto belonged, 
ipso facto j to the scuola of that traghetto; and his title was 
barcariol del traghetto, to distinguish him from his natural 
enemy, the barcariol toso, or loose gondolier, who went about 
poaching on the confines of the various ferries, and stealing a 
fare whenever he could. 

The scuole, it is true, exist no longer in all their clearly 
defined constitution; the passage of time has broken down 
this structure of the early gondoliers. But the traghetti still 
survive and each is governed by its ancient officials, its gas- 
taldo and bancali. The latter are still responsible for the 
good order of the men ; they arrange the rotations of service ; 
they see to the cleanness and safety of the landing-places; 
they retain their powers of trying, fining, or suspending a 
refractory brother; if the city authorities have any orders to 
issue, they communicate with the gastaldo and bancali; these 
officers are a true survival of the Fourteenth Century, with 
their duties, character and powers undiminished by the lapse 
of years. And the arrangements which these officers made of 
old for the good government of their traghetti retain their 
force in the Venice of to-day. In no profession are antique 
words more frequently to be found than in that of gondolier ; 
the customs and phrases of their trade seem to have become 
hereditary in the blood of the gondoliers, though it is only 



THE TRAGHETTI 69 

when modern regulations are imposed upon them that the 
men discover how deeply seated is their attachment to their 
ancient art. 

The arrangements of the traghetti are simple and efficient 
to maintain order; for though the noise is often great and a 
stranger might well believe that the men spent the larger 
part of their time in quarrelling, yet, as a matter of fact, a 
serious quarrel between two brothers, while on duty rarely 
occurs. The internal arrangement of a traghetto will be 
most easily understood by taking a typical instance, the 
traghetto of Santa Maria Zobenigo. This has one other 
traghetto, that of San Maurizio, and one station, that of the 
Ponte delle Ostreghi, attached to it, and worked by the men 
of Santa Maria. Besides serving these three posts, the 
gondoliers have duty at the neighbouring hotel, and lastly 
there is the patula, or night service. All the members of the 
traghetto, forty-two in all, are divided into six companies, 
each of which works in rotation as follows : One day at San 
Maurizio, one day at Santa Maria Zobenigo, one day at the 
Ponte delle Ostreghi; then come the two most important 
and profitable days for work, at the hotel Alia Locanda, and 
the patula. One of the companies is on duty at the hotel 
each day, and the men answer in turn to the hotel porter's 
summons of poppe a uno, or a due, as one or two rowers are 
required. It is well to remember that should one wish to 
secure a particular gondolier, he must be called by his num- 
ber; the rules of the traghetto forbid him to answer to his 
name. After the service at the hotel comes the patula, or 



jo VENICE 

service of twenty-four hours at the principal ferry. The 
fares for the parada, or passage, from one side to the other, 
is five centesimi during the day, and ten after the great bell of 
St. Mark's has sounded at evening. The reason why this 
service of the patula is so profitable is the following: the 
service lasts from 9 A. M. till the following 9 a. m. ; at 4 p. m. 
all the men except those belonging to the company on duty, 
leave the traghetto, thus reducing the numbers to a sixth, and 
increasing the gains. From 4 p. M. till 9 A. M. the men on 
the patula have the ferry all to themselves, and take all the 
hire that comes, both for services of an hour or more, as 
well as the fares for the parada, the only restriction being 
that the ferry must never be left with less than two men to 
attend to it. Their dinner is brought down to the ferry by 
the gondoliers' wives or children, and, in the summer, one 
may often see a whole family party supping together in the 
bows of a gondola. In the hot weather, the men sleep in 
their gondolas, and in winter, as many of them as can find 
room crowd into the little wooden hut which stands at the 
traghetto — the only remnant now of their chapter-house — 
where the bancali meet to settle the affairs of the fraternity. 
Sometimes the men on the patula club together, and divide 
the whole gains for the night in equal portions; sometimes 
each works on his own account. 

The ordinary profits of the traghetto used formerly to be 
so great that the gondoliers neglected the service of the 
patula, preferring to spend their nights at home, or in the 
wine-shops. But now a gondolier will tell you that his 



THE TRAGHETTI 71 

largest permanent gains each week come from the patula; 
and, at a good traghetto, he may count upon making four 
lire one night in every six, and frequently makes much more. 
At 9 A. M. those who have been on the patula the previous 
night, leave the traghetto for the whole of that day. The 
rotation of six days, three at the three posts, one at the hotel, 
one on the patula, and one off-day, makes up the diurnal life 
of the gondolier, unless he should be fortunate enough to 
have found a padrone, in which case he is free from all 
the rules and service of the traghetto. While on duty at the 
ferry, a few excellent rules suffice to keep order among the 
men. Those on duty are arranged numerically; and, when 
a passenger comes to the ferry, no one may call to him but 
the gondolier whose turn it is ; the only exception to this rule 
being that if a friar wishes to cross the ferry, the boat last in 
the order is bound to serve him, and for nothing. This cus- 
tom is, however, falling into disuse. No gondolier on duty 
may tie his boat to the pali, or posts, of the traghetto, nor may 
he wash his boat in cavana, the spaces between the posts 
where the gondola's bows run in. While on service, he is 
forbidden to go to the wine-shops; if he does, he loses his 
turn, and when he comes back he takes his place last on the 
list. 

At the opening of the Seventeenth Century, the govern- 
ment was obliged to revolutionise the whole character of the 
traghetti by taking away their property in the liberties. 
Hitherto there had been five modes by which a man might 
become a member of a traghetto — either by election in chapter 



72 VENICE 

of the school; or by the renunciation of a brother in his 
favour; or by exchange between two members of different 
ferries; or by the order of the Proveditori as filling a 
vacancy unfilled by the school; or by order of the Prove- 
ditori as a reward for good naval service. Now, all the liber- 
ties, as soon as they fell vacant, were put up to auction in 
the office of the Milizia da Mar, and knocked down to the 
highest bidder. From this time forward, till the close of the 
Republic, purchase at auction from the government became 
the only way in which a man could obtain a license as gon- 
dolier. The government undertook the supervision of the 
registers, and any liberty that remained unoccupied through 
neglect, ill health, or death, was sold immediately. 

Thus the traghetti lost the control over their liberties; 
and with that control disappeared the most important part of 
their functions and powers as a corporation. From that date 
to this, the government of the day has been the virtual 
owner of the liberties, and the final resort in all questions 
affecting their management. Until quite recently, a young 
gondolier might buy an old one out of his place at a good 
traghetto, for about three hundred lire; and the municipality 
readily sanctioned such exchanges. But the present town- 
council desire to put an end to this remnant of ancient priv- 
ilege, and insist that they alone shall appoint and transfer, 
and that the gondoliers have no claim to initiative in the 
matter. 

The regulations of the government on the subject of 
liberties restored comparative order to the traghetti, though 



THE TRAGHETTI 73 

they could not alter human nature, and we come across oc- 
casional outbursts of the riotous spirit among the young 
gondoliers, who still bullied their passengers, and exacted 
more than their due centesimo for the fare across the ferry. 
In the year 1702, the censors threaten the whip, and other 
tortures, for those who carry pistols or knives in their boats; 
and, as late as 1800, one Francesco Pelizzari; distinguished 
himself by crowding twenty-nine unfortunate people into his 
gondola, and refusing to land them till they had paid a modo 
suo. For this exploit, however, he was banished from Venice. 
The corporate life of the traghetti was closed by the action 
of the government in the Sixteenth Century. The schools 
survived, though with diminished vitality, until the extinc- 
tion of the Republic ; and even now certain of their functions 
are still performed by the modern traghetti. The traghetti 
are still friendly societies. A brother who falls ill receives a 
certain sum daily from the fraternity as long as his illness 
lasts; and the gastaldo and four brothers attend his funeral 
with torches, and accompany him to his last home at San 
Michele when he dies. The bancali are still the recognised 
heads of the traghetti, and hold their sittings in the wooden 
shelter huts at each ferry's end. But this is all that remains 
of an institution which was once among the most remarkable 
and complete of those that flourished under the Venetian 
Republic. 



THE GRAND CANAL 

THEOPHILE GAUTIER 

THE Grand Canal is in Venice what the Strand is in 
London, the Rue Saint Honore in Paris, and the 
Calle d'Alcala in Madrid, — the principal artery 
of the city's circulation. It is in the form of an S, the top 
curve of which sweeps through the city at St. Mark's, ter- 
minating at the island of St. Chiara, while the lower curve 
ends at the Custom House near the Giudecca canal. About 
the middle, this S is cut by the Rialto bridge. 

The Grand Canal of Venice is the most wonderful thing 
in the world. No other town can afford such a beautiful, 
strange and fairy-like spectacle: perhaps equally remarkable 
specimens of architecture may be found elsewhere, but they 
never occur under such picturesque conditions. There every 
palace has a mirror to admire its beauty in, like a coquettish 
woman. The superb reality is doubled by a charming re- 
flection. The waters lovingly caress the feet of those beauti- 
ful facades whose brows are kissed by white sunlight, and 
cradle them in a double sky. The little buildings and the 
big ships that can get so far seem to be moored expressly as 
a set-off, or as foregrounds for the convenience of decorators 
and water-colourists. 

When passing the Custom House, which, with the Giu- 
stiniani palace, now the Hotel de I' Europe, forms the entrance 

74 



THE GRAND CANAL 75 

of the Grand Canal, cast a glance at those fleshless horses' 
heads carved on the square and heavy cornice that supports 
the globe of Fortune : does this singular ornament signify that 
the horse being of no use in Venice people part with it at the 
Custom House, or is it rather merely a caprice of ornament? 
The latter explanation seems to us the best, for we are un- 
willing to fall into the symbolical refinings with which we 
have reproached others. 

The Custom House is a fine building with rustic columns 
adorned with bossages and supporting a square tower ter- 
minated with two kneeling figures of Hercules back to back 
supporting on their robust shoulders a terrestrial globe upon 
which turns a nude figure of Fortune with hair hanging loose 
in front and bald behind, and holding in her hands the two 
ends of a veil that forms a vane and yields to the faintest 
breeze: for this figure is hollow, like the Giralda in Seville. 
Close to the Dogana rises the white cupola of Santa Maria 
della Salute with its twisted volutes, its pentagonal staircase 
and its population of statues. An Eve in most gallant un- 
dress smiled upon us from the top of a cornice bathed in sun- 
light. We immediately recognised the Salute from Can- 
aletto's fine picture in the Louvre. 

Every stretch of wall tells a story; every house is a 
palace; every palace is a masterpiece and a legend. With 
every stroke of his oar, the gondolier mentions a name that 
was as well known at the time of the Crusades as it is to-day ; 
and this is true both on the right and left for more than half 
a league. We wrote down a list of these palaces, not all, 



76 VENICE 

but the most noteworthy of them; and we dare not copy it 
on account of its length. It fills five or six pages: Pietro 
Lombardi, Scamozzi, Vittoria, Longhena, Andrea Tre- 
mignano, Giorgio Massari, Sansovino, Sebastiano Mazzoni, 
Sammichelli the great Veronese architect, Selva, Domenico 
Rossi, and Visentini drew the designs and directed the con- 
struction of these princely dwellings, without counting the 
wonderful unknown Mediaeval artists who built the most 
romantic and picturesque ones, those that set the seal of 
originality upon Venice. 

On both banks altogether charming fagades of diversified 
beauty follow one another uninterruptedly. After one of 
Renaissance architecture, with its columns and superimposed 
orders, comes a Mediaeval palace of Arabian-Gothic style, the 
prototype of which is the Ducal Palace, with its open bal- 
conies, its ogives, its trefoils, and its indented acroterium. 
Farther on is a fagade plated with coloured marbles, and or- 
namented with medallions and consoles; then comes a great 
rose wall pierced with a wide window with little columns. 
Everything is to be found here: Byzantine, Saracen, Lom- 
bard, Gothic, Roman, Greek, and even Rococo; the column 
large and small, the ogive and the round arch, the capricious 
capital full of birds and flowers that has been brought from 
Acre or Jaffa; the Greek capital that was found among the 
ruins of Athens, the mosaic and the bas-relief, Classical 
severity and the elegant fancies of the Renaissance. It is an 
immense gallery open to the sky wherein one may study the 
art of seven or eight centuries from the interior of one's 



THE GRAND CANAL jj 

gondola. What genius, talent and money have been ex- 
pended in this space that we traverse in less than an hour! 
What prodigious artists, but also what intelligent and mag- 
nificent lords! What a pity it is that the patricians who 
knew how to get such beautiful things executed only exist 
now on the canvases of Titian, Tintoretto and II Moro! 

Before even arriving at the Rialto, you have on your left, 
going up the canal, the Dario palace, in the Gothic style; 
the Venier palace, which stands at angle, with its ornaments, 
its precious marbles and its medallions, in the Lombard style ; 
the Fine Arts, a Classic facade coupled to the ancient Scuola 
della Carita surmounted by a Venice riding a lion ; the Con- 
tarini palace, the architect of which was Scamozzi; the 
Rezzonico palace, with three superimposed orders; the triple 
Giustiniani palace in* the Mediaeval taste ; the Foscari palace, 
which is recognisable by its low door, two stages of little 
columns supporting ogives and trefoils, in which the sover- 
eigns who visited Venice were formerly lodged; the Balbi 
palace, over the balcony of which princes leaned to watch the 
regattas held on the Grand Canal with so much pomp and 
splendour in the halcyon days of the Republic; the Pisani 
palace, in the German style of the beginning of the Fifteenth 
Century; and the Tiepolo palace, which is relatively quite 
spruce and modern, with its two elegant pyramidions. On 
the right, close to the Hotel de VEurope, between two big 
buildings is a delicious little palace which is chiefly composed 
of a window and a balcony ; but what a window and what a 
balcony! A gimp of stonework, scrolls, guilloches and 



78 VENICE 

pierced work that one would think impossible to produce 
except with a punch on one of those pieces of paper that are 
placed over lamp-globes. 

Continuing up the canal, we find the following palaces: 
Corner della Ca' Grande, which dates from 1532, one of 
Sansovino's best; Grassi; Corner-Spinelli ; Grimani, in the 
robust and strong architecture of Sammicheli, the marble 
base of which is surrounded by a Greek course of very fine 
effect; and Farsetti with a columned peristyle and a long 
gallery of little columns that occupies its whole front. We 
might say, as Don Ruy Gomez da Silva said to Charles the 
Fifth, in Hernani, when he is showing him the portraits of 
his ancestors: " I pass them by, and better ones too." We 
will, however, request favour for the Loredan palace and the 
ancient dwelling of Enrico Dandolo, the conqueror of 
Constantinople. Between these palaces there are houses 
that set them off, whose chimneys shaped like turbans, turrets 
and vases of flowers very happily break up the great archi- 
tectural lines. 

Sometimes a traghetto, or a piazzetta, such as the campo 
San Vitali, for example, which faces the Academy, appro- 
priately cuts this long suite of monuments. This campo, 
lined with rough-coated houses of a strong and lively red, 
forms the happiest contrast with its vine branches of an inn 
arbour; this vermeil spot in this line of facades that have 
been more or less browned by time rests and delights the eye; 
some painter is always found established here with his pal- 
ette on his thumb and his box on his knees. The gondoliers 



THE GRAND CANAL 79 

and pretty girls who are attracted by the presence of these 
strange beings always pose naturally, and from admirers 
become professional models. 

The Rialto, which is the finest bridge in Venice, has a 
very grandiose and monumental appearance: it spans the 
canal with a single arch of an elegant and bold curve. It 
was built by Antonio da Ponte, in 1691, w T hen Pasquale 
Cigogna was Doge, and replaces the ancient wooden draw- 
bridge in Albert Diirer's plan of the city. Two rows of 
shops, separated in the middle by an arcaded portico, giving 
a glimpse of the sky, occupy the sides of the bridge that may 
be crossed by three ways : a central one and two outside path- 
ways adorned with marble balustrades. About the Rialto 
bridge, which is one of the most picturesque points of the 
Grand Canal, are piled the oldest houses in Venice, with 
their flat roofs with poles for awnings, their tall chimneys, 
their bulging balconies, their staircases with disjointed steps, 
and their wide spaces of red plaster that have scaled off in 
places and left bare the brick wall, and the foundations that 
are green from the contact of the water. Near the Rialto, 
there is always a tumult of shipping and gondolas, and stag- 
nant islets of moored small crafts drying their tawny sails 
that sometimes bear a great cross. 

Beyond the Rialto on the two banks are grouped the old 
Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the walls of which tinted with un- 
certain hues enable us to divine the frescoes of Titian and 
Tintoretto, like dreams that are about to take flight; the 
Fish Market, the Herb Market, and the old and new con- 



80 VENICE 

structions of Scarpagnino and Sansovino. These reddened 
and degraded buildings, admirably toned and tinted by time 
and neglect, must constitute the despair of the municipality 
and the delight of painters. Beneath their arcades swarms an 
active and noisy population, that mounts and descends, comes 
and goes, buys and sells, laughs and bawls. There fresh 
tunny is sold in red slices; and mussels, oysters, crabs and 
lobsters are carried away in baskets. 

Under the arch of the bridge, where the noisiest echoes 
resound all around, the gondoliers sleep sheltered from the 
sun while waiting to be hired. 

Still going up the Grand Canal, we see on the left the 
Corner della Regina palace, thus named after the queen 
Cornaro of Cyprus. The architecture by Domenico Rossi is 
of great elegance. The sumptuous abode of Queen Cornaro 
is now a pawn-shop, and the humble tatters of misery and the 
jewels of improvidence at the last extremity are piled up here 
beneath the rich ceilings that are indebted to them for not 
falling into ruins: for to-day it does not suffice to be beauti- 
ful, it is necessary to be useful as well. 

The Armenian college, not very far away, is an admir- 
able edifice, by Paldassare de Longhena of rich, solid and 
imposing architecture. It is the old Pesaro palace. To the 
right rises the Ca' d'Oro palace — one of the most charming 
on the Grand Canal. It belonged to Mile. Taglioni, who 
had it restored with the most intelligent care. It is all em- 
broidered and laced with open stonework in a mixed taste of 
Greek, Gothic and Barbarian; and is so fantastic, so light, 



THE GRAND CANAL 81 

so aerial, that it might be said to have been made expressly 
for the nest of a sylph. 

The old Vendramin Calergi palace, the most beautiful in 
Venice, is an architectural masterpiece, and its carvings are 
of marvellous fineness. Nothing can be prettier than the 
groups of children who hold shields over the arches of the 
windows. The interior is full of precious marbles: two 
porphyry columns of such rare beauty that their value would 
pay for the rest of the palace are particularly admired. 

Although we have taken a long time, we have not yet 
said all. We notice that we have not spoken of the Mo- 
cenigo palace, where the great Byron lived. The Barberigo 
palace also deserves mention. It contains a number of beau- 
tiful pictures, and a carved and gilded cradle intended for 
the heir of the noble family, a cradle that might be made into 
a tomb, for the Barberigos are extinct as well as the major- 
ity of the old Venetian families. Of nine hundred patrician 
families inscribed in the Golden Book, scarcely fifty remain. 

A few strokes of the oar soon brought into view one of the 
most marvellous spectacles that were ever given for the 
human eye to contemplate: the Piazzetta seen from the 
water. Standing on the prow of the stationary gondola, we 
looked for some time in mute ecstasy at this picture for which 
the world has no rival, — perhaps the only one that cannot be 
surpassed by the imagination. 

On the left we see first the trees of the Royal garden that 
traces a green line above a white terrace; then the Zecca 
(the Mint) a building of robust architecture; and the old 



82 VENICE 

library, (Sansovino's work) with its elegant arcades and 
crown of mythological statues. 

On the right, separated by the space that forms the Piaz- 
zetta, the vestibule of St. Mark's Square, the Ducal Palace 
presents its vermeil facade lozenged with white and rose 
marble, its massive columns supporting a gallery of little 
pillars the ribs of which contain quatrefoils, with six ogival 
windows, and its monumental balcony ornamented with con- 
solas, niches, bell-turrets and statuettes dominated by a Holy 
Virgin; its acroterium standing out against the blue of the 
sky in alternate acanthus leaves and points, and the spiral 
listel that binds its angles and ends in an open-work pinnacle. 

At the end of the Piazzetta, besides the Library, the 
Campanile rises to a great height; this is an immense brick 
tower with a pointed roof surmounted by a golden angel. 
On the Ducal Palace side, St. Mark's, viewed sideways, 
shows a corner of its porch which faces the Piazzetta. The 
view is closed by a few arcades of ancient Procurators' offices 
and the Clock Tower with its bronze figures for striking the 
hours, its Lion of St. Mark on a starry blue blackground and 
its great blue dial on which the four and twenty hours are 
inscribed. 

In the foreground, facing the gondola landing-place, be- 
tween the Library and the Ducal Palace are two enormous 
columns of African granite, each in a single piece, that were 
formerly rose but have been washed into colder tones by 
rain and Time. 

On the one to the left, coming from the sea, stands in a 



THE GRAND CANAL 83 

triumphant attitude, with his brow encircled by a metal nim- 
bus, his sword by his side and lance in hand, his hand resting 
on his shield, a finely proportioned St. Theodore slaying a 
crocodile. 

On the column to the right, the Lion of St. Mark in 
bronze, with outspread wings, claw on his Gospel, and with 
scowling face turns his tail on St. Theodore's crocodile with 
the most sour and sullen air that can be expressed by a 
heraldic animal. 

It is said not to be of good augury to land between these 
two columns, where executions formerly took place, and so 
we begged the gondolier to pat us ashore at the Zecca stairs 
or the Paille bridge, as we did not want to end like Marino 
Faliero, whose misfortune it was to be cast ashore by a tem- 
pest at the foot of these dread pillars. 

Beyond the Ducal Palace the new prisons are visible, 
joined to it by the Bridge of Sighs, a sort of cenotaph sus- 
pended above the Paille canal, then comes a curved line of 
palaces, houses, churches and buildings of all kinds that form 
the Riva dei Schiavoni (the Slave Quay) , and is ended by the 
verdant clump of the public gardens, the point of which juts 
into the water. 

Near the Zecca is the mouth of the Grand Canal and the 
front of the Custom House, which, with the public gardens, 
forms the two ends of this panoramic arc over which Venice 
extends, like a marine Venus drying on the shore the pearls 
salted by their natal element. 

We have indicated as exactly as possible the principal 



84 VENICE 

lineaments of the picture ; but what should be rendered is the 
effect, the colour, the movement, the shiver in the air and 
water; life, in fact. How can one express those rose tones 
of the Ducal Palace that look as lifelike as flesh; those 
snowy whitenesses of the statues tracing their contours in the 
azure of Veronese and Titian; those reds of the Campanile 
caressed by the sun; those gleams of distant gold; those 
thousand aspects of the sea, sometimes clear as a mirror, 
sometimes scintillating with spangles, like the skirt of a 
dancer? Who can paint that vague and luminous atmosphere 
full of rays and vapours from which the sun does not exclude 
all shadows; that going and coming of gondolas, barks, 
and galliots; those red or white sails; those boats familiarly 
leaning their cutwaters against the quay, with their thousand 
picturesque accidents of flags, ropes and drying nets; the 
sailors loading and unloading the ships, carrying cases and 
rolling barrels, and the motley strollers on the wharf. Dal- 
matians, Greek, Levantines and others whom Canaletto 
would indicate with a single touch : how can one make it all 
visible simultaneously as it occurs in Nature, with a succes- 
sive procedure? For the poet, less fortunate than the 
painter or the musician has only a single line at his disposal: 
the former has a whole palette, the latter an entire orchestra. 



THE PATRICIANS' PALACES 

P. MOLMENTI 

THE elegances of art have a great influence upon 
private manners. Towards the end of the 
Fifteenth Century the manifestations of taste were 
everywhere in evidence, and it might be said that even cos- 
tume borrowed its forms from Art, which reigned every- 
where—in the modest dwelling of the poor as well as in the 
Doge's palace. Along with wealth was augmented the 
magnificence of the palaces that sprang from the waters as if 
by enchantment. In his Voyage, Constant says: "I do 
not speak of the multitude of great and beautiful and rich 
palaces, one of a hundred, another of fifty, and a third of 
thirty thousand ducats, nor of their owners, for it would be 
too hard a task for me, and one fitted only for a man who had 
to stay a long time in the said city of Venice." The annual 
rent of houses for the use of nobles was from fifty to one 
hundred and twenty gold ducats. 

The interior of these mansions was in no way inferior to 
the exterior. The graceful twines of the arches and the 
spiral columns that support the ogives of the marble fagades 
were reproduced in the interior ornamentation and in the 
furniture of the apartments that were not very spacious, but 
painted and decorated with severe elegance. The commonest 
utensil and the furniture of even the most trifling importance 

85 



86 VENICE 

had an artistic value. Splendid friezes ran around the upper 
portions of the rooms the ceilings of which " remarkable for 
their mouldings," as Sansovino says, and their arabesques, 
were sometimes of carved wood, gilded and coloured, and 
sometimes, after the style of the Thirteenth Century, with 
long and thick beams painted and carved in the style called 
intelaradure alia tedesca. 

The walls covered with tanned, gilded or silvered leather, 
with ornaments and figures (cuori d'oro), or with silken 
hangings, sometimes embroidered with precious stones or 
striped with thin plates of gold ; the folding doors, the jambs 
and lintels, all carved or incrusted; the chimney-pieces dec- 
orated with fantastic interlacings of foliage, chimeras, sirens 
and cupids in the Lombard taste : — everything was admirable 
for its richness or its exquisite form. Among other examples, 
there still exists in the Ducal Palace a wonderful model of 
Fifteenth Century mural decoration in the room degli Scar- 
latti, which at first was the Doge's room, and afterwards the 
place where the Twelve nobles, who wore scarlet robes, 
met. Around the ceiling, decorated with golden rose-work 
on a blue ground, runs an elegant frieze carved throughout; 
the chimney-piece, a work by Lombardo executed when Au- 
gustino Barbarigo was Doge, that is to say, between i486 
and 1 50 1, is a masterpiece for the marvellous delicacy of its 
ornamentation, which twines in and out with supple elegance. 

But what we have fewest examples of are the furniture and 
hangings, Time having consumed the greater part of these, 
and the mercantile spirit of the age having relinquished the 




PALAZZO LOREDAN 



PATRICIANS' PALACES 87 

remainder to foreigners. We will nevertheless endeavour to 
the best of our ability to reconstruct in imagination the in- 
terior of a patrician mansion of the Fifteenth Century. In 
the middle of the room usually occupied by the nobles were 
to be seen on the walnut table of chastened style, and along 
the walls or on brackets, in charming disorder, amphorae, ce- 
ramics, gold and silver vases, great swords, medals, cymbals, 
lutes, and books bound in guilloched leather. The taste for 
the antique was already in the ascendant, and in glass cases 
were assembled the statuettes and other objects discovered in 
the excavations. Hanging from the ceilings, or fixed to the 
walls, gleamed lamps of Oriental style in gilded copper or 
bronze enamelled, inlaid, chased, and ornamented with 
crystal of a thousand hues; or lanterns adorned with little 
wreathed columns, closed with mirrors of various forms, 
which on the walls produced an effect of painting in chiaros- 
curo; or again lanterns of hammered iron with the most 
elegant volutes and open-work. In the libraries were pre- 
served those precious parchment manuscripts whose pages 
painted with miniatures, with infinite patience in the silence 
of the cloisters, still breathe forth the amiable ingenuity of 
that period. The table-service was of gold and silver; the 
glasses and flasks of Murano had an individual transparence 
and elegance; even the copper vases used to cool the drinks 
were covered with strange damaskeening. The bedrooms 
served also as reception rooms. Around the mirrors, and 
magnificently hung beds, and alcoves supported by gilded 
caryatides, were framings of carved open woodwork, border- 



88 VENICE 

ing panels, marquetry work and other ornaments of extreme 
delicacy. During the early years of the Sixteenth Century, 
the Doge's bed was covered with gold, and Contarini says, in 
describing the palace, that in the ducal chamber he saw the 
lettiera coperta de aurea malestate. Beside the bed was 
placed the Prie Dieu, beneath those diptychs or little wooden 
altars with little open spires, and with saints with golden 
aureoles ; — beautiful works on which the carver often cut his 
name beside that of Vivarini and others who had painted the 
images. The presses, coffers, trousseaux chests, jewel caskets 
for wedding presents (which on that account were justly 
called marriages), were carved or painted with domestic 
and battle scenes. People ran into such wild expenditure 
for the furnishings of an apartment that a law of 1476 
ordered not more than 150 ducats of gold were to be spent 
on wood, gold and painting. 

The Venetian palaces had several doors that did not all 
lead into the vestibule (entrada), but sometimes into vast 
courtyards surrounded with walls battlemented in the Arab 
fashion. 1 In these courtyards were wells with artistically 
sculptured curbs; and here were found those picturesque 
stairways without carcass that we still admire in the Sanudo 
Palace of St. Mary of the Miracles, the Capello Palace at St. 
John Lateran, the Centenni Palace at San Toma, etc., etc. 2 

1 The Foscari palace, for instance. 

2 A marvellous staircase, but one with a carcass, is the spiral 
staircase of the Contarini Palace at San Paterniano, known to-day 
under the name of Scala a bovolo de Minellu 



PATRICIANS' PALACES 89 

In the Sixteenth Century the change from the ideas of the 
Middle Ages to those of renascent Antiquity is already ac- 
complished. Pagan grandeur revives in all its splendour. 
The demand for luxury grows more marked from day to day 
and in the interiors furniture becomes richer and less simple. 
Sansovino writes, towards the end of the Sixteenth Century: 
" As for the apartments, furniture and incredible riches, one 
cannot even imagine them, far less describe them clearly. 
. . . And although our elders were economical, they 
grew magnificent in the adornment of their dwellings. There 
are innumerable edifices with the ceilings of the chambers 
and other rooms gilded and painted, and covered with his- 
torical pictures and excellent fancies." Franco, also, in his 
turn, says: " The buildings of this city offer an admirable 
spectacle to one who looks at them from the outside. But 
when one sees the interiors, they are still more astonishing 
and wonderful, for they are adorned with very beautiful 
paintings, carvings, mouldings, tapestries, gold and silver 
and such a quantity of other precious ornaments, that, if a 
man wanted to enumerate them, those who have not seen 
them would take him for a liar." Riches, nevertheless, were 
never separated from beauty; and, moreover, there was no 
cessation in the invention of new forms of presses, credences, 
tables, chairs, doors and stools. Sansovino says: " In fact, 
nowhere else are to be seen more commodious, more con- 
centrated, or more fit for man's use than these." The private 
life of that century was written in the pictures, tapestries and 
furniture; just as the public life was written in the monu- 



90 VENICE 

ments. With time, luxury constantly became more external 
and was displayed principally in the state and reception rooms, 
each one of which could contain a whole modern apartment. 
From the vestibules, ornamented with mouldings and bas- 
reliefs, household goods gradually disappeared and the an- 
cient arms were replaced by gigantic show halberds with 
handles covered with crimson velvet, studded with yellow 
leather and ornamented with red silk fringes and shining 
steel on which are engraved fruits, victories and trophies. On 
the landings of the staircases are statues, and fragments of 
antique columns with inscriptions. Even in the hall (or 
portico), are hung precious trophies of arms, gemmed shields 
and flags. The doors with casings of rare marble lead into 
great rooms where gold, velvet and silk reflect the light in a 
thousand ways upon the walls adorned with pictures by 
celebrated Venetian masters. The notices on the works of 
design of the first half of the Sixteenth Century, by an anon- 
ymous author believed to be Marc Antoine Michiel, and 
published by Morelli, show us the quantity of admirable 
works with which the walls then had to be hung. 



SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE 

JOHN RUSKIN 

SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE," Our Lady of 
Health, or of Safety, would be a more literal trans- 
lation, yet not perhaps fully expressing the force of 
the Italian word in this case. The church was built between 
1630 and 1680, in acknowledgment of the cessation of the 
plague: — of course to the Virgin, to whom the modern 
Italian has recourse in all his principal distresses, and who 
receives his gratitude for all principal deliverances. 

The hasty traveller is usually enthusiastic in his admiration 
of this building ; but .there is a notable lesson to be derived 
from it which is not often read. On the opposite side of the 
broad canal of the Giudecca is a small church celebrated 
among Renaissance architects as of Palladean design, but 
which would hardly attract the notice of the general observer, 
unless on account of the pictures by John Bellini which it 
contains, in order to see which the traveller may perhaps 
remember having been taken across the Giudecca to the 
Church of the " Redentore." But he ought carefully to 
compare these two buildings with each other, the one built 
" to the Virgin," the other " to the Redeemer," also a votive 
offering after the cessation of the plague of 1576: the one, 
the most conspicuous church in Venice, its dome, the principal 
one by which she is first discerned, rising out of the distant 

91 



92 VENICE 

sea ; the other, small and contemptible, on a suburban island, 
and only becoming an object of interest, because it contains 
three small pictures! For in relative magnitude and con- 
spicuousness of these two buildings, we have an accurate index 
of the relative importance of the ideas of the Madonna and 
of Christ in the modern Italian mind. 

The Church of Santa Maria della Salute on the Grand 
Canal, one of the earliest buildings of the Grotesque Renais- 
sance, is rendered impressive by its position, size, and general 
proportions. These latter are exceedingly good ; the grace of 
the whole building being chiefly dependent on the inequality 
of size in its cupolas, and pretty grouping of the two cam- 
paniles behind them. It is to be generally observed that the 
proportions of buildings have nothing whatever to do with 
the style or general merits of their architecture. An arch- 
itect trained in the worst schools, and utterly devoid of all 
meaning or purpose in his work, may yet have such a natural 
gift of massing and grouping as will render all his structures 
effective when seen from a distance : such a gift is very gen- 
eral with late Italian builders, so that many of the most 
contemptible edifices in the country have good stage effect 
so long as we do not approach them. The Church of the 
Salute is farther assisted by the beautiful flight of steps in 
front of it down to the Canal; and its fagade is rich and 
beautiful of its kind, and was chosen by Turner for the 
principal object in his well-known view of the Grand Canal. 
The principal faults of the building are the meagre windows 
in the sides of the cupola, and the ridiculous disguise of the 




SANTA MARIA DELL A SALUTE, ITALY. 



SANTA MARIA DELL A SALUTE 93 

buttresses under the form of colossal scrolls; the buttresses 
themselves being originally a hypocrisy, for the cupola is 
stated by Lanzi to be of timber, and therefore needs none. 
The sacristy contains several precious pictures: the three on 
its roof by Titian, much vaunted, are indeed as feeble as they 
are monstrous; but the small Titian, St. Mark, with Sts. 
Cosmo and Damian, was, when I first saw it, to my judg- 
ment, by far the first work of Titian's in Venice. It has 
since been restored by the Academy, and it seemed to me en- 
tirely destroyed, but I had not time to examine it carefully. 
At the end of the larger sacristy is the lunette which once 
decorated the tomb of the Doge Francesco Dandolo; and at 
the side of it, one of the most highy finished Tintorets in 
Venice, namely The Marriage in Cana } an immense picture, 
some twenty-five feet long by fifteen feet high, and said by 
Lanzi to be one of the few which Tintoret signed with his 
name. 



nr 



THE RIALTO 

CHARLES YR1ARTE 

HE Rialto is one of the most popular names of 
Venice, and the one that, with the Lido, recurs 

"■*"■ most frequently in her history and popular songs. 
Originally, the spot where the Rialto rises was the heart of 
Venice, one of those islets of that group of islands which at 
a later period were to form Venice (Rivo-Alto) ; and the 
Rialto, as the old chronicles say, designated in a general way 
the site of the city. It was for a long time the only bridge 
thrown across the Grand Canal, serving as communication 
between the two large groups of islands divided by this 
Canal. From time immemorial (at least from the Twelfth 
Century), there was a wooden foot-bridge there, constantly 
repaired, until the day when the Signory, deciding to make 
the Rialto harmonise with the beautiful monuments of 
Venice, resolved to call the aid of the great architects and 
engineers of the time. 

I have had the curiosity to search in the archives of 
Venice for sketches relating to the Rialto ; the documents are 
extremely numerous, but do not go back further than the 
beginning of the Sixteenth Century; they give, however, 
most interesting details upon the construction of the bridge 
that exists to-day and original matter enough to gather the 

94 



THE RIALTO 95 

history of the construction. For everything concerning the 
state of the building, or the history of the spot itself before 
the Sixteenth Century, recourse must be had to the Venetian 
chroniclers, and first of all to Sansovino. It is thought that 
from the Eighth Century, the necessity was felt for a more 
rapid means of passage between the groups of islands than by 
means of boats, and that, at a period which naturally remains 
uncertain but which must have been contemporary with the 
building of St. Mark's, a bridge composed of flat boats called 
soleole was formed at the Rialto. 

In 1 180, an engineer, Barattieri, whose name has been 
preserved, made of this temporary bridge a permanent one, 
and in 1260, the system of boats being definitively suppressed, 
piles were driven in and abutments constructed to bear, not a 
stone bridge, as some historians say, but a draw-bridge; and 
this is the bridge represented in Carpaccio's famous picture, 
The Patriarch of Grado healing one possessed by an Evil 
Spirit, which is in the Academy of Venice. In 13 10, on 
the occasion of the conspiracy of Bajamonte Tiepolo, at the 
moment when the conspirators were about to seize the Ducal 
Palace, having found St. Mark's Place guarded, they fled 
precipitately to the other side of the Canal, and cut the 
bridge behind them to make their flight sure. Naturally, the 
bridge had to be rebuilt at once, but the work was done too 
rapidly, and a little more than a century later, on the occasion 
of the marriage of the Marquis of Ferrara, the festival was 
so uproarious that the bridge gave way under the crowd and 
serious injuries resulted. This being the only passage it was 



96 VENICE 

too useful to remain interrupted for long; and they sub- 
stituted for the broken bridge a large edifice filled up with 
shops on either side of the footway, and a water-passage for 
the large boats. 

It is very interesting to see the real appearance of the 
Rialto of that time in the fine canvas of Carpaccio that I 
have just mentioned; here is an invaluable bit of evidence 
for the history of Venetian architecture. One might have ex- 
pected the reconstructed bridge to be permanent ; but any one 
who knows Venice and her history intimately will under- 
stand that the perpetual traffic demanded a still more sub- 
stantial construction. The Fondaco dei Tedeschi rises on 
the right, the palaces of Camerlenghi on the left; the 
Fabbriche nuove, and the jewellers who have their shops 
there and the fish and vegetable vendors who are collected on 
either bank create such a continual going and coming that a 
very strong bridge is required to resist the strain. From 
1525, nothing but complaints were heard about the precarious 
condition of this important bridge, and promises were made 
to substitute a durable edifice. Nothing was done till 1587; 
Fra Giocondo, the designer of Gaillon and the bridge of 
Notre-Dame, had once submitted a plan; Palladio had also 
made one in his turn; at last, on the 6th of December, 1587, 
the Senate invited a competition. As customary in Venice, 
a commission of inquiry was nominated, composed of three 
personages, all senators, whose especial task was to collect in- 
formation and look for the anterior plans signed by Giorgio 
Spaventi, Fra Giocondo, Scarpa Guino, Jacopo Sansovino, 



THE RIALTO 97 

Andrea Palladio, Jacopo Barroccio da Vignola, and, it is 
said, by the great Michelangelo. 

The best proof of the truth of the assertion that Michel- 
angelo submitted a plan for this bridge, is furnished by the 
subject of a painting that adorns the Casa Buonarroti at Flor- 
ence and which represents Michelangelo being received with 
honour by the Doge Andrea Gritti, and presenting to him a 
drawing for the Bridge of the Rialto. 

Of the twenty-four plans of architects and engineers the 
committee pointed out to the Senate and Grand Council, the 
three that seemed most worthy, Scamozzi, Antonio da Ponte 
and Albisio Baldu. The work was entrusted to Da Ponte; 
it took three years to build and cost two hundred and fifty 
thousand ducats, or thirty thousand pounds of English money, 
which, at that time, was a considerable sum. Sansovino says 
that ten thousand pounds of elm timber would have to be 
driven in to a depth of sixteen feet; a large armed galley 
should be able to pass under the keystone of the arch with 
lowered mast, and withal the height of the bridge should not 
be great enough to render the communication between the 
two quarters of the town difficult. 

The platform of the bridge is about twenty-four metres 
long; it is reached by an easy ascent of steps, and is wide 
enough to hold a row of shops under arcades, so that in 
reality it is a kind of suspended street, as lively as a market. 
The central arcade is left clear and forms an open gallery 
over the keystone of the bridge ; between the parapet and the 
shops runs a balustraded passage supported on strongly pro- 



98 VENICE 

jecting corbels. The span of the arch is twenty-seven metres, 
fifty centimetres, and its rise, from the usual level of the 
waters of the Grand Canal, measures seven metres. 

The traveller who delights to linger on St. Mark's Place 
in the Basilica, at the Ducal Palace, and in the museums and 
churches should also halt long and frequently upon the 
Rialto; for it is certainly a unique corner: here crowd 
together, laden with fruit and vegetables, the black boats 
that come from the islands to provision Venice, the great hulls 
laden with cocomeri, angurie, with gourds and watermelons 
piled in coloured mountains; here, the gondolas jostle and 
the gondoliers chatter like birds in their Venetian idiom; 
here, too, are the fishermen in their busy, noisy, black market, 
an assemblage of strange craft and types of humanity; and 
as a pleasant contrast, on the steps of the bridge and stopping 
before the jewellers' shops are the girls, from the different 
quarters of Venice, from Canareggio, Dorso Duro, San 
Marco and Santa Croce, and from every quarter of the 
town, come to buy the coloured neckerchiefs with which they 
deck themselves, and jewellery of delicately worked gold, 
bright glass beads from Murano, or glass balls iridescent with 
green, blue and rose; while, wrapped in their old grey 
shawls that allow their wrinkled profiles and silvery locks to 
be seen, the old women of the Rialto drag their sandals over 
the steps and slip into the crowd, hiding under the folds of 
their aprons the strange food they have just bought from the 
open air vendors who sell their wares on the borders of the 
Rialto. 



THE CA' D'ORO 

MAX DOUMIC 

THIS little palace on the Grand Canal known as the 
Ca' d'Oro 1 is one of the most charming buildings 
in Venice. It is one of the most striking speci- 
mens of that Venetian architecture which is the result of so 
many different influences that you can find neither laws nor 
principles, and which, though often disconcerting, always 
charms, perhaps indeed because it is subject to neither laws 
nor principles and permits the eye to be fascinated idly by 
the harmony of the design and the colour. 

The history of the Ca' d'Oro is very obscure, at least its 
early history. It is thought that it received its name from 
the fact that its ornaments were originally gilded, traces of 
gilding being still found on the little lions that decorate the 
corners of the roof. Then others have attributed this ap- 
pellation to the admiring tribute of a people possessed of a 
lively and poetic imagination. It seems far more probable, 
however, that this palace was built by the Doro family, and 
that this family becoming extinct in 1355 with Nicola Doro, 
condemned to death for having been concerned in Marino 
Faliero's conspiracy, popular tradition, while preserving the 
name of the palace, changed the origin of the name. This 
hypothesis seems to be confirmed by those golden lions which 
1 Ca d'Oro is the abbreviation of Casa d'Oro, the golden house. 

99 



LofC. 



ioo VENICE 

ornament the facade, for the arms of the Doro family was a 
golden lion on a silver field. 

After the sentence of Nicola Doro, his palace was con- 
fiscated by the Republic. It is supposed that it was given as 
a present to Pandolfe Malatesta, lord of Rimini, for it is 
well known that the Senate gave him a palace after he had 
ceded his seigniory to the Republic, and moreover, Pandolfe's 
shield is found over a stairway leading to the second floor 
in the Ca' d'Oro. Official deeds tell us that this palace be- 
longed to the Contarini and then to the Marcello, and about 
the middle of the Seventeenth Century it passed to the Betti- 
gnoli family. In the Nineteenth Century the celebrated 
Taglioni lived in it. 

The architecture of the Ca' d'Oro has afforded much play 
to the imagination of archaeologists, who, finding so many 
styles and influences here are too puzzled to classify it and 
dare not assign a date. In truth it is better not to fix a date 
for it and not to try to classify it at all. It is one of those old 
buildings that have been successively transformed by differ- 
ent generations: Time has covered these changes with its 
marvellous rust made of sunshine and dew and has harmon- 
ised them into a magnificent spectacle, and we ought to ad- 
mire this spectacle as we admire a landscape without inquiring 
how it is made, and as we admire flowers without asking the 
age of the tree that bears them nor the tissues of which they 
are composed. The Ca' d'Oro is of this class, and we will 
now see how we are reduced to hypotheses as soon as we 
begin to analyse it. 



THE CA' D'ORO 101 

We are struck by the lack of symmetry in this little palace 
composed of two parts in juxtaposition, one of which is all 
open-work and the other gives the impression of a solid wall ; 
we seek for an axis and it has been supposed that in the orig- 
inal plan the doors were intended to be in the centre of the 
composition and should be flanked on the left by a wing simi- 
lar to that which exists on the right, and that on account of 
lack of money or difficulties with the neighbours, this wing 
was never built. This is hardly possible. It is difficult to 
admit that such a palace would have been constructed until all 
the necessary ground was acquired. If we hold to the idea 
that the plan was originally a symmetrical conception, we may 
suppose, on the contrary, that it originally had two wings. 
We know that the Contarini sold one part of their palace 
to Alvise Loredano and another part to the Marcello; the 
left wing would therefore be separated, and, passing to other 
owners, might have disappeared in the Seventeenth Century 
to make room for a new building. These, however, are only 
conjectures made according to modern ideas. In the Middle 
Ages, in Venice, as in France, they never thought of com- 
posing a facade according to any determined order; every- 
body planned his house according to his individual needs, 
and the fagade was the natural expression of the interior 
arrangement. Examples are not lacking in Venice ; the large 
windows that ornament the facades of the Doge's Palace on 
the Piazzetta and on the Riva degli Schiavoni have no axis 
and the other bays are not symmetrically disposed. There 
is every reason to believe that the Ca' d'Oro never was sym- 



102 VENICE 

metrical, and that its architects did not consider its lack 
of symmetry a defect. 

And now what style shall we connect it with? At the 
first glance we discover that the ground floor is of the 
Twelfth Century; the first of the Thirteenth, and the 
second of the Fourteenth; but this division is far from being 
clear. The composition will not permit us to admit that 
the palace is made of scraps of all kinds; we feel a style 
subsisting under all the changes; however, it is certain that 
the arches of the ground floor are not of the character 
as the capital they surmount, and the same thing occurs 
on the loggia of the second floor. In fact, this palace must 
date from the Twelfth Century, perhaps the Eleventh, but 
it was altered and almost entirely remodelled in the suc- 
ceeding centuries. Of the original building only a few 
bits are left; the capitals of the loggia on the ground floor, 
some of the balustrades and certain details of sculpture that 
are imbedded in the walls of the wing. As for the shafts 
of the columns, they must have come from older buildings, 
to judge by the diversity of marbles they exhibit: marbles 
from Greece, brocatello and paronazzetto. The gallery of 
the first floor, dating from the Thirteenth Century, is the 
most perfect part, but it has been changed; the corners of 
the mouldings instead of turning round naturally, as they 
do in the upper part, are brusquely and awkwardly cut, and 
are spoiled by the neighbouring windows which seem to have 
been enlarged. The columns of the gallery on the second 
floor are crowned by arches that are thin in design, dry 



THE CA' D'ORO 103 

and out of scale. The old cornice has been mutilated, but 
the few traces that remain of it show that it was made under 
the Arab influence, in imitation of the stalactitic cornices. 

And so the architecture of the Ca' d'Oro has followed 
the history of Venetian architecture itself. It is certain 
that this palace was in its full splendour in the Thirteenth 
Century, and if we have the right to regret anything at 
all, it is that it has not survived as it was during this period. 

Is it necessary to add that here, as elsewhere, the most 
recent transformations have been the most unhappy? These 
are the projecting balconies that cut the ensemble and dis- 
figure it, and the two twin windows with which the ground 
floor of the wing has been pierced. 



THE FONDACO DEI TURCHI AND THE 
FONDACO DEI TEDESCHI 

CHARLES YRIARTE 

FROM the Thirteenth Century, the Venetians had 
acquired such progress in commerce and had made 
such numerous treaties with the peoples of Europe 
and Asia that at certain periods the city was rilled with 
strangers, attracted by exchange and commerce and who 
were entertained by their business acquaintances. The Sen- 
ate anxious to develop everything that might contribute to 
the glory or wealth of Venice wished to facilitate the 
sojourn of all these strangers by establishing fondachi, or 
caravanserais, where they might be lodged gratuitously by 
presenting themselves to special magistrates, whose duty 
was to establish their identity and importance. The Ger- 
mans were the first to have their Fondaco, which was situated 
on the Rialto itself and many times rebuilt, and of which, 
unfortunately only a mass of modern and characterless 
appearance is now to be seen. 

Three nobles, with the title of Vis Domini, presided over 
the administration of establishments of this kind; there was 
a public weigher who took note of the weights and nature 
of the merchandise and classified it in the warehouses that 
belonged to the Fondaco. This was on the same principle 
as our docks with the exception that the owners of the 

104 



FONDACO DEI TURCHI 105 

cargo were lodged in the building itself at the expense of the 
State. Next in importance to the weigher came the Fon- 
ticaio, or keeper of the building. In this same Thirteenth 
Century the Armenians were also favoured by the govern- 
ment; but a certain Marco Ziani, nephew of the Doge 
Sebastian, who had a deep affection for them, because his 
family had lived in Armenia for a long time, bequeathed 
to them his palace, the Ziani Palace, in the street of San 
Giuliano. 

The Moors also had their Fondaco, near the Madonna 
del Orto on the Campo dei Mori, where a number of houses 
enriched with carvings of camels bearing merchandise and 
figures in Moorish costume may yet be seen. 

The Turks, in the Seventeenth Century received for 
their share that superb palace on the Grand Canal which 
still bears the name Fondaco dei Turchi, and which the 
city has restored as the civic Correr Museum; this palace, 
one of the oldest and most curious in Venice, and which 
must be contemporary with the Ducal Palace and the fagade 
of St. Mark's facing the lagoon, belonged to the Duke of 
Ferrara; but long before this, from the Fourteenth Cen- 
tury, the Turks had been provided for by the State in the 
street called Canareggio, and later in that of San Giovanni 
e Paolo, near the statue of Colleoni, one of the most beau- 
tiful spots in Venice, where the wonderful church of San 
Giovanni e Paolo stands. But it must not be forgotten that 
these Turks, so useful from a commercial point of view, were 
infidels, therefore the windows of their fondaco were or- 



106 VENICE 

dered to be walled up; the rooms were lighted from an 
interior patio; an enclosing wall was erected, the two corner 
turrets, which might serve for defence, were razed, and a 
Catholic warder was stationed there who shut the doors 
at sunset. Women and children were forbidden to cross 
the threshold, arms and powder were deposited in a safe place 
in front of the entrance; and finally, to complete this series 
of prohibitions, it was forbidden to lodge an Ottoman in 
the city. 

The Tuscans, who, as every one knows, were great mer- 
chants, and had become very wealthy by means of their 
banks and counting-houses, had their Fondaco on the Rialto ; 
and the people of Lucca had theirs in the Via Bissa, in 
that part of town lying between the Rialto and San Giovanni 
Crisostomo. 

The Greeks and Syrians were so numerous and on such 
good terms with the Venetians, that they lived all over the 
city. As for the Jews, who could not be excluded because 
of their peculiar aptitude for trade, they had been subjected 
to innumerable restrictions. As early as the Sixth Century 
they had arrogated the monopoly of money-changing, and 
the greater number of the princes, considering their own 
interests, encouraged them to live in their cities. In the 
Thirteenth Century, the Lombards and the Florentines had 
in their turn succeeded in getting the monopoly of large trans- 
actions; envy arose against those who were amassing and 
preserving such immense wealth; and finally the spirit of 
the Crusades, in awaking Christian sentiment, had also 



FONDACO DEI TURCHI 107 

excited public animosity against the Jews; Venice remained 
open to them and in profiting from this they perhaps abused 
this privilege, for we soon find them forced to take refuge 
at Mestre, the little country where to-day the railways 
from the north and south converge to enter Venice. But 
banks properly speaking did not yet exist; pawn-shops were 
not known, and, consequently, with a view to developing 
petty as well as large commercial interests and of encour- 
aging business generally, the Senate decided to re-admit the 
Jews to the city. The time of their sojourn was limited, 
and they were compelled to wear a mark by which they 
could be recognised, which at first consisted of a piece of 
yellow material sewn on the breast, for which afterwards 
a yellow bonnet was substituted and later a bonnet the 
upper part of which was covered with red. They were for- 
bidden to buy houses, lands or even furniture, or to practice 
noble arts (except, indeed, medicine). Cruel to these men, 
whom they sought out for their proverbial intelligence and 
by whose abilities they profited, the Senate assigned them, 
as at Rome, a special district to live in, the Corte delle 
Galli, between the streets of San Girolamo and San Geremia ; 
they also gave it the customary name of Ghetto. They 
were obliged to pay dearly even for this unhealthy abode, 
and a wall was built around it to separate them from other 
citizens; they were exactly in the position that the Jews of 
Morocco are in to-day, forced to close their doors from 
sunrise to sunset, and with two Catholic warders paid out 
of their own money to keep watch over the place. On 



108 VENICE 

holidays they were strictly forbidden to go out. Two armed 
ships guarded their outlets to the sea. They could not 
have a synagogue in Venice and were forced to go to 
Mestre, and for their burial-ground, they were grudgingly 
accorded an arid strip of beach on the lagoon. 

We are, however, not concerned with the condition of 
the Jews in Venice, but merely with their commercial rela- 
tions towards the subjects of the Republic; let us, therefore, 
return to the fondachi, or residences granted by the State 
to the representatives of foreign trade. Two fondachi have 
become famous and still remain in existence: that of the 
Turks and that of the Germans. The Fondaco dei Turchi 
still stands to-day on the Grand Canal, at San Giacomo 
dell' Orio. 

Those who visited Venice thirty years ago, must have 
noticed, when going along the Grand Canal, this ancient 
building with its open loggia on the first story, ornamented 
with marble columns having Byzantine capitals. This an- 
tique facade, entirely covered with slabs of Greek marble 
and encrusted with circular escutcheons, was falling into 
ruin, and earth and moss were filling the interstices. During 
the long hours of the day, the Turkish custodian who still 
lived there, might be seen silently leaning against the last 
arch of the loggia in Oriental immobility, indifferent 
to the gondolas passing and repassing and upon which 
his eye rested without noticing them. A poet, unac- 
quainted with that Oriental indifference, which looks like 
reverie and which does not engender a single dream, would 



FONDACO DEI TURCHI 109 

have said that his eyes were full of sorrow, and that he 
was musing on the Past and of the ancient glory of Venice. 
This building, known by the name of Fondaco dei Turchi, 
was built in the Thirteenth Century by the family of the 
Palmieri of Pesaro. Pietro Pesaro, the last embassador of 
the Venetian Republic at Rome and the last of 'his name, 
could not bear to see the downfall of his country, and died 
in exile. The Pesaro were not always masters of this build- 
ing. In 1 33 1, it was bought by the Republic and given to 
the Marquises of Este, lords of Briare. Later, when they 
became the Dukes of Este, they gave in this building those 
splendid fetes in which Ariosto and Tasso figured. 

Pope Clement VIII. took possession of the beautiful do- 
mains of the Dukes of Ferrara, and gave them to his nephew, 
Cardinal Aldobrandini, who, in 1618, sold them to Antonio 
Priuli, Doge of Venice. The Republic, seeking a favour- 
able locality for the sale of Turkish merchandise, hired 
Antonio Priuli's palace, which thus became the residence 
of the Turks and the depot of their merchandise. Extremely 
severe laws regulated its establishment. Finally, the Fon- 
daco came back into the possession of the Pesaro, Maria 
Prioli having bought it as a dowry to her husband Leonardo 
Pesaro, Procurator of St. Mark's. The last descendant 
of the Pesaro bequeathed the Fondaco dei Turchi to the 
Count Leonardo Marini, his nephew, who sold it in 1828 
to a contractor, who, in his turn, ceded it in 1859 to the 
city of Venice, which is now the owner. Count Sagredo, 
a Senator, was the first to become interested in this palace. 



no VENICE 

He wrote an excellent monograph upon it, in which the 
portions relating to art were treated by the skilful architect 
Frederic Berchet, who with great care and true feeling, 
proposed plans for restoring it. The commission under 
the direction of the first Count Alessandro Marcello, and 
then of Count Luigi Benito, welcomed the project; the 
latter began the execution of it, which was carried on with 
precision and promptitude. In addition to the Chevalier 
Berchet, who made a great reputation for himself by this 
work, we should mention the superintendent of the work, 
Sebastian Cadet, and the sculptor, Jacopo Spura, who re- 
stored the ancient marbles and preserved all their artistic 
distinction. After so many vicissitudes, this ancient build- 
ing, so intelligently restored, is now to remain forever the 
Museum of Venice. 

The Fondaco of the Germans (Fondaco dei Tedeschi), 
has been so disfigured by successive restorations that it is 
necessary to consult history and also to make an effort of 
the imagination, before you can bring yourself to give atten- 
tion to this large and massive palace, deprived of ornamen- 
tation, without elegance of form and without proportion, 
that rises on the left of the Rialto Bridge coming from the 
railway. Tradition says that at the beginning of the Six- 
teenth Century, its exterior was splendidly decorated with 
frescoes from the brushes of Giorgione and Titian. This 
is the first we hear of Giorgione's name as the decorator 
of the exterior of a palace; but as the Senate d'ordine pub- 
blico had decided to ornament the jondaco, it is quite certain 



FONDACO DEI TURCHI m 

that the famous Barbarelli, that great poet of colour and 
form, would have been employed. It would be interesting 
to search the official records in the archives of the Frari 
for the financial accounts of the Fondaco, which should 
certainly be there, and learn if really these great lords and 
politicians employed Giorgione's genius for this work. But 
without turning over the leaves of the archives, we may 
accept the assertions of the great writers and the mono- 
graphs on Venice, that speak of having still in their time 
seen this splendid decoration, defaced and ruined indeed, 
but still showing the incontestable marks of this master's 
genius. Selvatico has left an account of the Fondaco dei 
Tedeschi; he attributes this building to Fra Giocondo, the 
famous Dominican who built the Consular Palace at Verona, 
and the Chateau de Gaillon in Normandy, one facade of 
which has been transported to the court of the Ecole des 
Beaux-Arts in Paris. It seems that from time immemorial 
the Fondaco existed on its present site, and when, in 1540, 
a considerable fire destroyed the building, the Senate, anx- 
ious to show its interest in the cause of commerce in general, 
and also for a nation to which Venice had been bound by 
close commercial relations for many centuries, ordered that 
a new building of a regular form should be rebuilt. But, 
if Selvatico pretends that Fra Giocondo was the architect 
chosen by the Signory, other documents show that Giro- 
lamo Tedesco was given the order. After describing the 
building and its position on the Grand Canal, with its en- 
trance to the sea and its flight of stairs on the water for 



ii2 VENICE 

unloading the merchandise, Selvatico expresses himself in 
words that leave no doubt as to the richness of the decora- 
tion : " The profile of the windows is poor, but they are 
arranged symmetrically enough to produce a simple and 
noble effect; and indeed they needed no further ornament, 
since all the plain parts of the walls were covered with 
splendid frescoes by Giorgione and Titian, frescoes that 
have been almost entirely destroyed by the hand of man 
and the agency of time together. At the two angles of the 
fagade overlooking the canal, there once stood two towers, 
upon which might be read two important inscriptions. But 
a few years ago, when the building was restored, the two 
towers were overthrown, the inscriptions effaced, and what 
is still more irreparable, two magnificent figures by Gior- 
gione which might be regarded as the best preserved of all, 
were destroyed." 



VIEW FROM THE CAMPANILE 

HENRY HAVARD 

LET us ascend the Campanile. This has its one 
entrance on the Piazza opposite the Procuratie 
■*• Vecchie. Formerly this entrance was carefully 
guarded, for the Campanile was to some degree the belfry 
of the city. The great bells at its summit, which we shall 
presently see, were charged with calling the citizens to 
arms, to announce danger to the troops and to inform the 
arsenalotti to mount guard. The possession of the Cam- 
panile was a guarantee of the security of the Ducal govern- 
ment. Therefore, during every conspiracy that broke out 
in Venice, the conspirators tried to seize it: some, like 
Querini, Tiepolo and Marino Faliero, so as to ring the 
bells; others, like the Count of Bedemar, to be assured of 
their silence. But, it is quite remarkable that neither one 
nor the other was able to succeed in this plan: the Cam- 
panile remained ever faithful to those whom its mission 
was to protect. 

The first platform, the one in which the bells are found, 
is eighty metres high. But do not be alarmed; the ascent 
is not very fatiguing. The Campanile in reality is com- 
posed of two square towers placed one upon another joined 
by a flight of stairs of easy slope and which has but one 
step at each turn. It is a passage of slight inclination upon 

"3 



ii4 VENICE 

which you could mount on horseback and climb up to 
the very top by this means more easily and with less risks 
than the gondolier Santo. However, let us hasten to re- 
mark that it is hardly out of consideration for those quad- 
rupeds almost unknown in Venice, that the Campanile was 
thus constructed. Neither was it for the poor ecclesiastics 
who had to expiate their crimes midway up the monument, 
for they never went by this path to their aerial prison. 
They were shut up in a wooden cage at the foot of the 
tower and thence hoisted half way up to the summit. Ac- 
customed to all kinds of intemperance, they now had no 
provision but bread and water, and were left for long 
months in this place to meditate upon the fragility of human 
dignity and to contemplate at their pleasure the splendours 
of nature. Then they were brought down to receive some 
fresh provisions and taken back again until they had ex- 
piated their transgressions. But while chattering, we have 
reached the first platform. Attention now! 

First we are dazzled ! This is certainly one of the most 
marvellous panoramas in the whole world that suddenly 
breaks upon us. Let us first look at the Adriatic side: at 
our feet is the Ducal Palace, the old Library, the Riva degli 
Schiavoni, and the Zecca; all these are embraced in one 
glance, but so small indeed that the buildings look like 
marble coffers whose covers are plated with lead, and the 
large columns of the Piazzetta, with the lion and saint sur- 
mounting them, appear to be two granite ninepins, or still 
better two pieces borrowed from a huge chess-board. All 



VIEW FROM CAMPANILE 115 

around us we perceive restless movement like a swarm of 
ants, — these are the promenaders enjoying the freshness of 
the morning; then on the water black blots with red cen- 
tres, — these are the barks that are crowding each other the 
whole length of the Piazzetta. Farther away the gondolas 
spin over the emerald sea leaving a silvery track behind 
them, and from this height you would say that they are 
insects that are skimming over the surface of the water. 

Still further away, the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, 
with its elegant church and its heavy barracks, has the 
look of ship stranded at the port of entrance. Its marble 
facade, its round dome, and its rose-coloured walls com- 
placently reflect themselves in the transparent waves which 
come to leave the print of their wet green kisses upon its 
white steps. 

To the right, the Giudecca winds majestically, display- 
ing its granite quays, its variegated roofs, its houses and 
its churches. Nearer the Dogana di Mare advances proudly 
into the sea. Its columns, its statues and its golden dome 
which glitters in the sunshine gloriously mark the entrance 
to the Grand Canal; and behind it, the Salute, with its 
elegant dome, its enormous volutes and its marble steps, 
seems to watch over the health of the city. 

To the left is that marvellous horn that we have admired 
when coming in from the Adriatic. Formed by the Riva 
degli Schiavoni and the palaces that border it, then by the 
Ca di Dio and San Bragio quays, with their picturesque 
dwellings, it is terminated by the public garden which lifts 



n6 VENICE 

up its great round masses of foliage and its green cones 
behind a marble balustrade. This mass of verdure worthily 
ends this superb promontory and majestically shuts out the 
horizon; and this great basin, with its girdle of temples 
and palaces has the appearance of a magic cup filled to the 
brim with joy and pleasure. Then beyond this enclosure 
of marble and verdure extends the immense lagoon, with 
San Lazzaro, and the old Lazaret, Santa Elena, and Santa 
Elisabetta, the Grazia, San Spirito and San Clemente, gaily 
situated in the midst of green waves. And farther away, 
indeed quite far, behind Malamocco and its narrow littrorale, 
behind Pelestrina, which is lost in the mist, the Adriatic 
with its tender reflections, with its undecided horizon, the 
Adriatic of an indescribable sweetness, forms the back- 
ground of this superb picture. 

Let us take a look on the other side now. If the spectacle 
is less beautiful, less pompous and less splendid, it is not less 
interesting. Here is a mass of red and grey roofs, a large 
collection of tiles, slate and lead an inextricable confusion 
of lines that cross and mingle and cut one another in every 
sense. To see such a number of houses crowded and heaped 
together in such a narrow space, it seems that they must 
have been thrown there at haphazard without any order, 
systematic plan, or preconceived idea. There are no streets, 
no canals, no squares. Every now and then there is the 
fagade of a church, the cornice of a palace, or the gallery 
of a cloister. Then come campaniles, towers, belfries and 
steeples. Do not try to count them, for this would be a 



VIEW FROM CAMPANILE 117 

tiresome task. Formerly Venice numbered two hundred 
churches; to-day, hardly ninety are in working-order. But 
if the clergy have departed, the steeples remain, and still 
throw their shadows upon the neighbouring houses. Their 
leaning spires dominate the confused heap of roofs and ter- 
races, and these succeed one another without interruption 
until the sea comes brusquely to interrupt everything with 
its silver girdle. 

At the foot of the Campanile we perceive the square of 
St. Mark's with its galleries and promenaders, its white 
flags that look like a chessboard and its pigeons that blot 
it with black spots. Then comes the church with its mo- 
saics on a golden background, shining in the sun, with all its 
columns and its swelling dome. Then the clock-tower, 
with its golden lion, its starry dial and its bronze giants 
that seem to be pygmies. Those are tall masts that seem 
to be rods. Then if we suddenly lift our eyes beyond the 
houses, palaces, belfries and churches, there are the lagoons 
and the green sea with its silvery reflections, sprinkled with 
islands, with Murano, which seems to be a miniature Venice, 
and with the cemetery which you would take for a flower- 
garden. To the right, to the left, — everywhere, there are 
batteries and ports to protect the approaches to the city. 
There are San Giacomo, Tessera and Campalto, which by 
their crossed fire rendered Venice impregnable. There are 
the batteries of Rossarol, San Antonio and San Marco which 
isolated her from the mainland and rendered access im- 
possible. 



„8 VENICE 

Beyond the Malghera fort, do you not see Mestre, then 
Spinea, Zellarino, Tavaro, Gambaraze and their clock- 
towers? And behind, losing themselves in the transparent 
mist, the bronzed Alps with their crowns of snow and the 
bluish peaks of the Vizentine Mountains. If the sky and 
atmosphere were clearer, we could see the Gulf of Trieste, 
the coasts of Istria and the Italian coast from the Po di 
Goro as far as Tagliamento. Perhaps, indeed, with " the 
eyes of faith," we might like the President of the Brosses 
perceive " Epirus and Macedonia, Greece, the Archipelago, 
Constantinople, the sultan's favourite and His Royal High- 
ness toying with her." But let us not complain. It is this 
luminous haze that gives Venice that intensity of colour 
that charms us. It is that which intercepting the rays of 
the sun spreads around us that golden dust. Let us bless 
it then with all our might and be content with the marvels 
that unfold beneath our eyes. 



ST. MARK'S 

JOHN RUSKIN 

A YARD or two farther, we pass the hostelry of the 
Black Eagle, and, glancing as we pass through the 
square door of marble, deeply moulded, in the outer 
wall, we see the shadows of its pergola of vines resting on 
an ancient well, with a pointed shield carved on its side; 
and so presently emerge on the bridge and Campo San 
Moise, whence to the entrance into St. Mark's Place, called 
the Bocca di Piazza (mouth of the square), the Venetian 
character is nearly destroyed, first by the frightful facade 
of San Moise, and then by the modernising of the shops as 
they near the Piazza, and the mingling with the lower 
Venetian populace of lounging groups of English and Aus- 
trians. We will push fast through them into the shadow 
of the pillars at the end of the " Bocca di Piazza," and then 
we forget them all; for between those pillars there opens 
a great light, and, in the midst of it, as we advance slowly, 
the vast tower of St. Mark seems to lift itself visibly forth 
from the level field of chequered stones; and, on each side, 
the countless arches prolong themselves into ranged sym- 
metry, as if the rugged and irregular houses that pressed 
together above us in the dark alley had been struck back 
into sudden obedience and lovely order, and all their rude 
casements and broken walls had been transformed into 

119 



1 20 VENICE 

arches charged with goodly sculpture and fluted shafts of 
delicate stone. 

And well may they fall back, for beyond those troops 
of ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and 
all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind 
of awe, that we may see it far away ; — a multitude of pillars 
and white domes, clustered into a long, low pyramid of 
coloured light; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and 
partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into 
five great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset 
with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as 
ivory, — sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and 
lilies, and grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and 
fluttering among the branches, all twined together into an 
endless network of buds and plumes; and, in the midst of 
it, the solemn forms of angels, sceptred, and robed to the 
feet, and leaning to each other across the gates, their figures 
indistinct among the gleaming of the golden ground through 
the leaves beside them, interrupted and dim, like the morn- 
ing light as it faded back among the branches of Eden, when 
first its gates were angel-guarded long ago. And round the 
walls of the porches there are set pillars of variegated 
stones, jasper and porphyry, and deep-green serpentine spotted 
with flakes of snow, and marbles, that half refuse and half 
yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-like, " their bluest veins 
to kiss " — the shadow, as it steals back from them, revealing 
line after line of azure undulation, as a receding tide leaves 
the waved sand; their capitals rich with interwoven tracery, 



ST. MARK'S 121 

rooted knots of herbage, and drifting leaves of acanthus and 
vine, and mystical signs, all beginning and ending in the 
Cross; and above them, in the broad archivolts, a continu- 
ous chain of language and of life — angels, and the signs 
of heaven, and the labours of men, each in its appointed 
season upon the earth; and above them, another range of 
glittering pinnacles, mixed with white arches edged with 
scarlet flowers, — a confusion of delight, amidst which the 
breasts of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth 
of golden strength, and the St. Mark's Lion, lifted on a 
blue field covered with stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, 
the crests of the arches break into a marble foam, and 
toss themselves far into the blue sky in flashes and wreaths 
of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore had 
been frost-bound before they fell, and the sea-nymphs had 
inlaid them with coral and amethyst. 

Between that grim cathedral of England and this, what 
an interval! There is a type of it in the very birds that 
haunt them; for, instead of the restless crowd, hoarse- 
voiced and sable-winged, drifting on the bleak upper air, 
the St. Mark's porches are full of doves, that nestle among 
the marble foliage, and mingle the soft iridescence of their 
living plumes, changing at every motion with the tints, 
hardly less lovely, that have stood unchanged for seven 
hundred years. 

And what effect has this splendour on those who pass 
beneath it? You may walk from sunrise to sunset, to and 
fro, before the gateway of St. Mark's, and you will not 



122 VENICE 

see an eye lifted to it, nor a countenance brightened by it. 
Priest and layman, soldier and civilian, rich and poor, pass 
by it alike regardlessly. Up to the very recesses of the 
porches, the meanest tradesmen of the city push their coun- 
ters; nay, the foundations of its pillars are themselves the 
seats — not " of them that sell doves " for sacrifice, but of 
vendors of toys and caricatures. Round the whole square 
in front of the church there is almost a continuous line of 
cafes, where the idle Venetians of the middle classes 
lounge, and read empty journals; in its centre the Aus- 
trian bands play during the time of vespers, their martial 
music jarring with the organ notes, — the march drowning 
the miserere, and the sullen crowd thickening around them, 
— a crowd which, if it had its will, would stiletto every sol- 
dier that pipes to it. And in the recesses of the porches, 
all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unem- 
ployed and listless, lie basking in the sun like lizards; and 
unregarded children, — every heavy glance of their young 
eyes full of desperation and stony depravity, and their throats 
hoarse with cursing, — gamble, and fight, and snarl, and 
sleep, hour after hour, clashing their bruised centesimi upon 
the marble ledges of the church porch. And the images of 
Christ and His angels look down upon it continually. 

That we may not enter the church out of the midst of 
the horror of this, let us turn aside under the portico which 
looks towards the sea, and passing round within the two 
massive pillars brought from St. Jean d'Acre, we shall find 
the gate of the Baptistery; let us enter there. The heavy 



ST. MARK'S 123 

door closes behind us instantly, and the light and the tur- 
bulence of the Piazzetta, are together shut out by it. Let 
us enter the church itself. It is lost in still deeper twilight, 
to which the eye must be accustomed for some moments 
before the form of the building can be traced; and then 
there opens before us a vast cave hewn out into the form 
of a Cross, and divided into shadowy aisles by many pillars. 
Round the domes of its roof the light enters only through 
narrow apertures like large stars; and here and there a 
ray or two from some far away casement wanders into the 
darkness, and casts a narrow phosphoric stream upon the 
waves of marble that heave and fall in a thousand colours 
along the floor. What else there is of light is from torches 
or silver lamps, burning ceaselessly in the recesses of the 
chapels; the roof sheeted with gold, and the polished walls 
covered with alabaster, give back at every curve and angle 
some feeble gleaming to the flames; and the glories round 
the heads of the sculptured saints flash out upon us as we 
pass them, and sink again into the gloom. Under foot 
and overhead, a continual succession of crowded imagery, 
one picture passing into another, as in a dream; forms beau- 
tiful and terrible mixed together; dragons and serpents, 
and ravening beasts of prey, and graceful birds that in 
the midst of them drink from running fountains and feed 
from vases of crystal ; the passions and the pleasures of 
human life symbolised together, and the mystery of its 
redemption; for the mazes of interwoven lines and change- 
ful pictures lead always at last to the Cross, lifted and 



124 VENICE 

carved in every place and upon every stone; sometimes with 
the serpent of eternity wrapt round it, sometimes with doves 
beneath its arms, and sweet herbage growing forth from 
its feet; but conspicuous most of all on the great rood that 
crosses the church before the altar, raised in bright blazonry 
against the shadow of the apse. And although in the 
recesses of the aisles and chapels, when the mist of the 
incense hangs heavily, we may see continually a figure traced 
in faint lines upon their marble, a woman standing with 
her eyes raised to heaven, and the inscription above her, 
" Mother of God," she is not here the presiding deity. It 
is the Cross that is first seen, and always, burning in the 
centre of the temple; and every dome and hollow of its 
roof has the figure of Christ in the utmost height of it, raised 
in power, or returning in judgment. 

Nor is this interior without effect on the minds of the 
people. At every hour of the day there are groups collected 
before the various shrines, and solitary worshippers scattered 
through the darker places of the church, evidently in prayer 
both deep and reverent, and, for the most part, profoundly 
sorrowful. The devotees at the greater number of the re- 
nowned shrines of Romanism may be seen murmuring their 
appointed prayers with wandering eyes and unengaged ges- 
tures; but the step of the stranger does not disturb those 
who kneel on the pavement of St. Mark's; and hardly a 
moment passes, from early morning to sunset, in which 
we may not see some half-veiled figure enter beneath the 
Arabian porch, cast itself into long abasement on the floor 



ST. MARK'S 125 

of the temple, and then rising slowly with more confirmed 
step, and with a passionate kiss and clasp of the arms given 
to the feet of the crucifix, by which the lamps burn always 
in the northern aisle, leave the church as if comforted. 

The perception of colour is a gift just as definitely 
granted to one person and denied to another as an ear for 
music; and the very first requisite for true judgment for 
St. Mark's, is the perfection of that colour-faculty which 
few people ever set themselves seriously to find out whether 
they possess or not. For it is on its value as a piece of 
perfect and unchangeable colouring, that the claims of this 
edifice to our respect are finally rested; and a deaf man 
might as well pretend to pronounce judgment on the merits 
of a full orchestra, as an architect trained in the composi- 
tion of form only, to discern the beauty of St. Mark's. 

It would be easier to illustrate a crest of Scottish moun- 
tain, with its purple heather and pale harebells at their 
fullest and fairest, or a glade of Jura forest, with its floor 
of anemone and moss, than a single portico of St. Mark's. 
The balls in the archivolt project considerably, and the 
interstices between their interwoven bands of marble are 
filled with colours like the illuminations of a manu- 
script; violet, crimson, blue, gold, and green alternately: 
but no green is ever used without an intermixture of blue 
pieces in the mosaic, nor any blue without a little centre 
of pale green ; sometimes only a single piece of glass a quarter 
of an inch square, so subtle was the feeling for colour which 
was thus to be satisfied. The intermediate circles have 



1 26 VENICE 

golden stars set on an azure ground, varied in the same 
manner; and the small crosses seen in the intervals are 
alternately blue and subdued scarlet, with two small circles 
of white set in the golden ground above and beneath them, 
each only about half an inch across (this work, remember, 
being on the outside of the building, and twenty feet above 
the eye), while the blue crosses have each a pale green centre. 

From the vine-leaves of that archivolt, though there is 
no direct imitation of nature in them, but on the contrary 
a studious subjection to architectural purpose, we may yet 
receive the same kind of pleasure which we have in seeing 
true vine-leaves and wreathed branches traced upon golden 
light; its stars upon their azure ground ought to make us 
remember, as its builder remembered, the stars that ascend 
and fall in the great arch of the sky: and I believe that stars, 
and boughs, and leaves, and bright colours are everlastingly 
lovely and to be by all men beloved; and, moreover, that 
church walls grimly seared with squared lines, are not 
better nor nobler things than these. I believe the man who 
designed and the men who delighted in that archivolt to 
have been wise, happy, and holy. 

Now there is one circumstance to which I must direct 
the reader's special attention, as performing a notable dis- 
tinction between ancient and modern days. Our eyes are 
now familiar and wearied with writing; and if an inscrip- 
tion was put upon a building, unless it be large and clear, 
it is ten to one whether we ever trouble ourselves to decipher 
it. But the old architect was sure of readers. He knew that 



ST. MARK'S 127 

every one would be glad to decipher all that he wrote; that 
they would rejoice in possessing the vaulted leaves of his 
stone manuscript; and that the more he gave them, the 
more grateful would the people be. We must take some 
pains, therefore, when we enter St. Mark's, to read all 
that is inscribed, or we shall not penetrate into the feeling 
either of the builder or of his times. On the vault be- 
tween the first and second cupolas are represented the 
crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, with the usual series 
of intermediate scenes, — the treason of Judas, the judg- 
ment of Pilate, the crowning with thorns, the descent into 
Hades, the visit of the women to the Sepulchre, and the 
apparition to Mary Magdalene. The second cupola itself, 
which is the central and principal one of the church, is 
entirely occupied by the subject of the Ascension. At the 
highest point of it Christ is represented as rising into the 
blue heaven, borne up by four angels, and throned upon a 
rainbow, the type of reconciliation. Beneath him, the twelve 
apostles are seen upon the Mount of Olives, with the Ma- 
donna, and, in the midst of them, the two men in white 
apparel who appeared at the moment of the Ascension, above 
whom, as uttered by them, are inscribed the words : " Ye 
men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This 
Christ, the Son of God, as He is taken from you, shall so 
come, the arbiter of the earth, trusted to do judgment and 
justice." 

Beneath the circle of apostles, between the windows of 
the cupola, are represented the Christian virtues, as sequent 



128 VENICE 

upon the crucifixion of the flesh, and the spiritual ascension 
together with Christ. Beneath them on the vaults which 
support the angles of the cupola, are placed the four 
Evangelists, because on their evidence our assurance of the 
fact of the ascension rests; and, finally, beneath their feet, 
as symbols of the sweetness and fulness of the Gospel which 
they declared, are represented by the four rivers of Para- 
dise, Pison, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates. 

The third cupola, that over the altar, represents the wit- 
ness of the Old Testament to Christ; showing him en- 
throned in its centre and surrounded by the patriarchs and 
prophets. But this dome was little seen by the people; 
their contemplation was intended to be chiefly drawn to 
that of the centre of the church, and thus the mind of the 
worshipper was at once fixed on the main groundwork and 
hope of Christianity — " Christ is risen," and " Christ shall 
come." If he had time to explore the minor lateral chapels 
and cupolas, he could find in them the whole series of New 
Testament history, the events of the Life of Christ, and the 
Apostolic miracles in their order, and finally the scenery of 
the Book of Revelation; but if he only entered, as often the 
common people do to this hour, snatching a few moments be- 
fore beginning the labour of the day to offer up an ejacula- 
tory prayer, and advanced but from the main entrance as far 
as the altar screen, all the splendour of the glittering nave 
and variegated dome, if they smote upon his heart, as they 
might often, in strange contrast with his reed cabin among 
the shallows of the lagoon, smote upon it only that they 



ST. MARK'S 129 

might proclaim the two great messages — " Christ is risen," 
and " Christ shall come." Daily, as the white cupolas rose 
like wreaths of sea-foam in the dawn, while the shadowy 
campanile and frowning palace were still withdrawn into 
the night, they rose with the Easter Voice of Triumph — 
11 Christ is risen " ; and daily, as they looked down upon 
the tumult of the people, deepening and eddying in the wide 
square that opened from their feet to the sea, they uttered 
above them the sentence of warning, — " Christ shall come." 
And this thought may surely dispose the reader to look 
with some change of temper upon the gorgeous building 
and wild blazonry of that shrine of St. Mark's. He now 
perceives that it was in the hearts of the old Venetian people 
far more than a place of worship. It was at once a type 
of the Redeemed Church of God, and a scroll for the writ- 
ten word of God. It was to be to them, both an image of 
the Bride, all glorious within, her clothing of wrought gold ; 
and the actual Table of the Law and the Testimony, writ- 
ten within and without. And whether honoured as the 
Church or as the Bible, was it not fitting that neither the 
gold nor the crystal should be spared in the adornment of 
it; that, as the symbol of the Bride, the building of the 
wall thereof should be of jasper, and the foundations of it 
garnished with all manner of precious stones; and that, as 
the channel of the Word, that triumphant utterance of 
the Psalmist should be true of it — " I have rejoiced in the 
way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches"? And 
shall we not look with changed temper down the long per- 



130 VENICE 

spective of St. Mark's Place towards the sevenfold gates 
and glowing domes of its temple, when we know with what 
solemn purpose the shafts of it were lifted above the pave- 
ment of the populous square? Men met there from all 
countries of the earth, for traffic or for pleasure; but, above 
the crowd swaying forever to and fro in the restlessness 
of avarice or thirst of delight, was seen perpetually the glory 
of the temple, attesting to them, whether they would hear 
or whether they would forbear, that there was one treasure 
which the merchantmen might buy without a price, and 
one delight better than all others, in the word and the 
statutes of God. Not in the wantonness of wealth, not in 
vain ministry to the desire of the eyes or the pride of life, 
were those marbles hewn into transparent strength, and 
those arches arrayed in the colours of the iris. There is 
a message written in the dyes of them, that once was 
written in blood ; and a sound in the echoes of their vaults, 
that one day shall fill the vault of heaven, — " He shall 
return, to do judgment and justice." The strength of 
Venice was given her, so long as she remembered this: her 
destruction found her when she had forgotten this; and it 
found her irrevocably, because she forgot it without excuse. 
Never had city a more glorious Bible. Among the nations 
of the North, a rude and shadowy sculpture filled their 
temples with confused and hardly legible imagery; but, 
for her the skill and the treasures of the East had gilded 
every letter, and illumined every page, till the Book-Temple 
shone from afar off like the star of the Magi. 



THE SCULPTURES ON THE FACADES 
OF ST MARK'S 

JEAN PAUL RIGHT ER 

IN the following attempt to investigate the principal 
or west facade, as well as the north and south lateral 
facades of St. Mark's, it must be understood, that no 
remarks will be made on the architectural construction and 
decorations of the church, although it would not be im- 
possible to enter upon such a discussion of this unique 
monument from fresh and altered points of view. To 
many among those who are accustomed to look on it as 
a superlative work of art, or, it may be, as one of the 
11 seven wonders of the world," this course may appear 
strange. We may even seem to be straying from the sub- 
ject altogether in thus ignoring architecture when pro- 
posing to discuss this wonder of architecture. In depreca- 
tion of such a charge, I beg to remark beforehand that it 
is only a lacuna in the art literature relating to St. Mark 
which it is here attempted to supply. 

A slight examination of the reliefs on the facade is suf- 
ficient to show that they contain examples of the styles 
of eight different centuries, beginning with the Fourth. 
Several of them have inscriptions, but unhappily none with 
the names of the artists. Nor do the numerous descriptions 
of St. Mark's which have been published give any clue 

131 



1 32 VENICE 

whatever to the origin of the reliefs. Indeed, they scarcely 
ever mention them. F. Sansovino, in his Venetia citta 
nobilissima, only says that, in the middle of the Eleventh 
Century, Selvo, the thirtieth Doge, first covered the walls 
of the church with an incrustation of finissimi marmi, and 
had many columns conveyed thither from Athens, various 
islands of Greece and the Morea. A more detailed account 
of a single piece of Byzantine sculpture in St. Mark's is 
given in the Cronica Veneta, published in the year 1736, 
where we read that " at the side of the altar, in a side 
wall of the chapel of St. Zeno, is the marble relief of the 
Madonna with the Infant Christ, a bas-relief executed alia 
Greca } and underneath it a similar work in marble, repre- 
senting an angel. The inscription on it declares that it was 
discovered by the Emperor Michael Palaiologus (1260- 
1283), and that the stone is alleged to be the same out 
of which Moses made the water to flow- The stone was 
discovered by the aforesaid Emperor, and brought, as the 
inscription on it asserts, to Constantinople, from whence the 
Doge Vitale Michel brought it to Venice." We see from 
this that after the completion of the interior the Venetians 
continued to collect Oriental reliefs for the adornment of 
the church. 

To do full justice to the Byzantine sculptures on the 
facade of St. Mark's, we must first inquire into their history. 
And since the printed chronicles and descriptions of Venice 
afford us no information, we are compelled to have recourse 
to the archives of the Republic. One chronicler, indeed, who 



SCULPTURES ON ST. MARK'S 133 

might have given us the information from documentary 
evidence, contents himself with the following disappointing 
remark: — " If I wished to give the sources of the different 
reliefs with which St. Mark's is adorned, I should be obliged 
to relate the history of all the expeditions ever undertaken by 
the Venetians." 

Unfortunately, it is only in isolated cases that we can now 
hazard any definite conjectures as to the origin of these 
treasures. Beneath the balustrade which protects the four 
horses there are five bas-reliefs, placed between the seven 
arches of the fagade. Unequal in size, they are also unequal 
in artistic value ; and their subjects are so different as to show 
plainly that it is only by chance that they have been placed 
together. Still in some cases, they form pendants. Those, 
for instance, at the extreme north and south ends of the 
facade represent two of the Labours of Hercules. In the one 
we see the hero in a mantle hanging down upon his back; 
while on his left shoulder lies the Erymanthian wild boar, 
which he is firmly grasping, with both hands held up over his 
head. In the second, his attitude is the same, but he carries 
the hind of Diana. That these two mythological representa- 
tions were not originally designed for the fagade of a church 
is self-evident. Out of the Twelve Labours of Hercules, 
the third and fourth, following the customary computation, 
have here been selected, and we may assume for certain that 
the tablets originally belonged to a complete series of the 
deeds of the hero. The remaining pieces, however, are not 
to be found in Venice; and from this we may conclude that 



1 34 VENICE 

the Venetians were probably not able to get possession of the 
entire cycle. Representations of the Labours of Hercules 
are not uncommon among the monuments of Greek and 
Roman art. But what lends a special and peculiar impor- 
tance to the two tablets in question is the style in which they 
are executed. The firm drawing of the outlines, the very 
flat modelling, and the quick movement of the figure, at once 
betray the hand of a Byzantine artist. The drawing is so 
correct, and the composition of the figure so skilful, that it is 
impossible to assign them to a time later than the Fourth or 
Fifth Century after Christ — the age of Constantine and 
Theodosius, when the traditions of antiquity were still held 
in honour in the erection of public monuments. We are not 
afraid of being accused of exaggeration when we maintain 
that no city of the East, no museum in Europe, possesses 
Byzantine marble-reliefs so exquisite in conception and exe- 
cution as these. 

Two other reliefs, depicting subjects from the ancient my- 
thology, and belonging to the Byzantine epoch of art, are to 
be found on the south facade of St. Mark's. First, there is a 
woman standing upright, enveloped in a long tunic and bear- 
ing a crown on her head. A palm-branch is visible in her left 
hand, while her right, which is stretched out in front of her, 
holds a wreath. The emblems of the wreath and palm point 
to a Victory, while the crown is the distinctive mark of the 
tutelar goddess of a city. The figures of Victory of classic 
antiquity are winged, and are not so composed and dignified 
in their bearing as this Byzantine woman, whose solemn step 



SCULPTURES ON ST. MARK'S 135 

recalls the archaic Greek representations of Pallas Promachos. 
This figure can scarcely have served for any other purpose, 
whether in Constantinople or any other capital of the East, 
than to adorn a triumphal arch. Secondly, on the same wall 
of the south facade is a relief representing the sun-god in a 
chariot drawn by three griffins, and in all probability dating 
from the Ninth or Tenth Century. 

Among the Byzantine sculptures in the outer walls of St. 
Mark's, there still remain two which represent not Christian, 
but mythological subjects. These mythological groups con- 
sist each of four medallions. The scenes depicted in them are 
partly taken from the models of classic antiquity, such as 
Amor riding upon a lion, and playing the flute; two eagles, 
one fighting with a snake, the other seated upon a hare ; or a 
griffin attacking a deer. Others indicate an Asiatic influence, 
such as the curious group of four lions, placed two and two, 
facing one another, and with one head in common. Another 
of these medallions shows a boy with a drawn sword, fighting 
a lion; another, a gazelle, ridden by a naked man, with a 
sword in his hand. The meaning of these representations is 
very obscure, and they probably refer to popular traditions 
now fallen into oblivion. 

The sculptures referring to Christian belief are, as might 
be expected, more numerous than the mythological repre- 
sentations on the fagade of St. Mark's, and although the 
subjects they contain are not, in the majority of cases, of an 
unusual character, they nevertheless require very careful 
consideration, being almost the only examples preserved to us 



136 VENICE 

of an art the monuments of which are rarely to be met with 
elsewhere. The principal doorway is ornamented by two 
bas-reliefs let into the wall, one on each side, and at first 
sight exactly alike. Each shows a knight, clad in a Byzan- 
tine coat-of-mail, and seated upon a kind of throne, with a 
sword across his lap, which he is in the act of drawing out 
of the scabbard. They are St. Demetrius, pro-consul and 
martyr of Saloniki, and St. George, the canonised slayer of 
the dragon, who suffered martyrdom in Nicomedia. 

Of Byzantine reliefs containing single figures, there are to 
be found on the principal facade of St. Mark's only a Ma- 
donna and a figure of the archangel Michael. These too, 
both in execution and conception, have a character entirely 
their own, and diverse from Western art. Whether we go 
to the painting of Cimabue at Santa Croce in Florence; or 
to the two world-renowned pictures of the archangel by 
Raphael, in the Salon Carre of the Louvre ; or to the equally 
popular painting by Guido, in the church of the Capuchins at 
Rome, Michael is always the same mighty hero, with foot 
advanced, trampling beneath him the dragon of the ancient 
mythology, transfixed in head or neck by the spear. In the 
Byzantine relief of St. Mark's, on the contrary, the arch- 
angel stands before us in solemn repose, as though awaiting 
the command of his Lord. Two mighty wings are visible 
on his shoulders; his right hand grasps a globe with a cross 
upon it, the symbol of the earth ; his left, a sceptre, or rather 
herald's staff, such as we find borne by the messengers of 
princes as early as Homer. 



SCULPTURES ON ST. MARK'S 137 

No less interesting, even though unimportant from an 
artistic point of view, is the figure of the Madonna, which 
probably dates from about the Sixth Century. She is not 
associated with the infant Christ, but stands alone, upright, 
and stretching out both her arms in prayer, in the act of 
offering up intercession for those who commend themselves 
to her protection. This conception is entirely in accordance 
with the fresco paintings of the early Christian catacombs. 

Among the single figures of the south facade, the most 
prominent are the four Evangelists, of almost life size. They 
are apparently productions of the Byzantine art of the 
Fifth Century. In their conception and execution there is 
nothing extraordinary. The Evangelists are continually 
occurring in Byzantine art, especially in illuminated man- 
uscripts. But if we compare these with the reliefs, it is at 
once evident that from an artistic point of view the latter are 
far superior to all other representations of the same subject. 
Nothing can be more natural than the solemn deliberation 
with which these holy men are here writing down their nar- 
ratives. The parchment roll or book in which they write, 
lies, in Oriental fashion, upon their knees. John is not, as 
in Western representations, a youth ; but an old man with a 
long beard ; for according to the tradition of the Church, he 
wrote his Gospel in extreme old age, and the Apocalypse in 
his earlier years; and accordingly, in the representation on 
St. Mark's, he is writing his Gospel on a roll on his right 
knee, while a closed book, evidently the Apocalypse, lies upon 
his left. 



138 VENICE 

It still remains for us to describe the reliefs in which entire 
compositions are depicted. We may first mention some frag- 
ments belonging to the attica of an early Christian sarcoph- 
agus, which are let into the wall above one of the doorways 
of the principal fagade. They contain eleven different sub- 
jects from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation of 
the Angels to the Shepherds, the Adoration of the Wise Men, 
the Miracle of Cana, and Christ between the Apostles Paul 
and Peter. We find an abundance of similar reliefs in the 
museums of the Papal Palaces at Rome, brought from the 
atria of the oldest basilicas, and, generally speaking, not in- 
ferior in artistic value to the fragments on St. Mark's. But, 
notwithstanding, we must look on those of St. Mark's as 
unique, because they are Greek work, and of a kind of 
which little or nothing else has survived destruction. The 
care bestowed on an operation so difficult and laborious as 
the carving of a great number of small figures, disconnected 
from the background, would imply that the sarcophagus from 
which the fragments were taken belonged to the tomb of some 
great personage — a prince, perhaps even an emperor. 

All that is known at the present day of Byzantine art after 
the Seventh Century presents it to us in an unfavourable 
light, and the late Byzantine sculptures in the facade of St. 
Mark's confirm us in this judgment. We shall therefore 
here refer to only two of them, which merit attention on 
account of the peculiarity of their subjects. They are in the 
south wall. In the centre of one of them is represented a 
throne — the heavenly throne of Christ, although Christ Him- 



SCULPTURES ON ST. MARK'S 139 

self is not represented as occupying it; but on the throne 
are set three symbols typifying His person, viz., a cross with 
six arms, a medallion containing the figure of a lamb, and a 
crown. On each side of the throne, and looking up to it, 
stand six lambs, and behind them, closing in the composition, 
are two palm-trees and four vases. As to the meaning of 
these symbols, all doubt is removed by the Greek inscription 
beneath the relief. The lambs are the " holy apostles " ; the 
lamb upon the throne is " the holy Lamb." Such representa- 
tions are by no means uncommon among the oldest mosaics 
in the apses of the churches at Ravenna and Rome, which 
also show that the palm-trees are no idle accessory, but 
signify Paradise. 

Another reproduction of a wall-painting or mosaic is to be 
found in the second relief on the same wall. Here, as usual 
in historical representations of primitive Christian art, two 
different scenes are combined in the same composition. On 
the left is Abraham leading the boy Isaac by the hand. 
Isaac carries on his back the wood for the sacrifice ; Abraham 
holds in his left hand a great vessel, in the shape of a bowl, 
and doubtless representing the patriarchal tinder-box for the 
Fathers and theologians of the Church speculated much as to 
how Abraham kindled the sacrificial fire on Moriah. In the 
second scene, Isaac is lying bound upon the earth before a 
burning altar, while Abraham, standing behind him, lays his 
left hand upon Isaac's head, and with face averted lifts the 
knife in his right hand, ready to deliver the fatal blow. Be- 
hind him stands a lofty tree, with a lamb below it, and amid 



140 VENICE 

the branches of the tree appears a hand, the usual symbol of 
the Voice of God, on which Abraham bends his gaze. 

On the north side of St. Mark's, near the entrance to the 
courtyard of the Doge's Palace, is a relief executed in por- 
phyry. It represents four Oriental princes embracing one 
another in couples. These have given rise to the most vari- 
ous explanations, and are pointed out as objects of peculiar 
interest. Guides and guidebooks alike direct attention to 
them, and few visitors to the City of the Lagoons can 
have passed them by without notice. Why they should be 
thought worthy of such special attention (being, as they are, 
of very inferiour artistic value), it would be difficult to ex- 
plain. Perhaps it is because they are close to a door through 
which people are continually passing, and are thus easily seen. 
They were brought from Ptolemais. 

The decorations of the upper portions of the fagade were 
completed as late as the Fourteenth Century, since the orna- 
ments of that part are in the Gothic style and Byzantine 
sculptures are wholly wanting. The figurative ornamenta- 
tion of the principal entrance is the work, probably not of 
Byzantine, but of native artists, and belongs, without the 
least doubt, to the beginning of the same century. 

These sculptures deserve our thorough attention in more 
than one respect — not least because they represent the earliest 
efforts of Venetian sculpture. Venetian plastic art during 
the Fourteenth Century is almost wholly unknown outside 
the city; but any one who is intimately acquainted with the 
monuments in the churches of Venice cannot for a moment 



SCULPTURES ON ST. MARK'S 141 

doubt that it was far superior to the painting of the same 
date, and that the great Venetian painters of the Fifteenth 
Century had more to learn from the sculptors than from the 
painters of their native state. It has been said that the first 
great master of Italian sculpture, Andrea Pisano, was the 
author of the oldest non-Byzantine sculptures on the 
fagade of St. Mark's; but this would be to do them too 
much honour. In admiring them it has hitherto unhappily 
been the fashion to stop short at a general survey, and we ask 
in vain why it is that the sculptures of the principal fagade 
have never yet been described and explained. No other rea- 
son suggests itself for this than the extraordinary variety of 
invention and the great wealth of composition which they 
display. The visitors to Venice are — not too idle or too 
superficial perhaps — but, let us say, too busy, to spend their 
time in the examination of the details of such complicated 
compositions. And yet these compositions are, before all 
things, to the last degree remarkable in their details; still 
more so even than in their artistic finish. Design and 
modelling may have been brought to an equal or greater 
degree of finish; but the subjects here handled by Venetian 
artists are simply unique of their kind. 

The three semicircular archivolts of the principal doorway, 
one within the other, are ornamented on the inner, as well as 
the outer surfaces, with compositions containing figures. The 
large external arch is adorned with rich foliage and roses, 
in the taste of the best /Egypto-Arabian ornamentation, and, 
as usual in early Christian monuments, proceeding from two 



142 VENICE 

vases. The spaces are filled up with eight holy men looking 
upwards to Christ, a beardless youth, at the summit of the 
arch. At the crown of the same arch is a medallion, with 
the Lamb of God, held by two angels; and below it on each 
side are twelve very remarkable representations of the handi- 
crafts of Venice. First come the shipbuilders, then follow 
the vintners, occupied in drawing liquor from the vats. 
Then the bakehouse and the shambles, matched on the op- 
posite side by a dairy, and by masons and shoemakers. These 
are followed by the hairdressers, and here we can see the 
dandies of ancient Venice having their hair pressed with 
curling-irons. Next comes coopers, carpenters, smiths, and 
many fishermen, who are placed opposite the shipbuilders. 
The meaning of the figures on the outer side of the smaller 
internal archivolt is more enigmatical. At the apex is seated 
a woman in antique costume, with her feet crosswise upon the 
ground. In each hand she holds a medallion, and beside her 
stand or sit sixteen women with loose-flowing hair, the 
majority having scrolls in their hands, which once probably 
bore their names. These are undoubtedly personifications of 
virtues. Here, for instance, is a youthful woman with flow- 
ing locks, tearing open the jaws of a lion with her hands, and 
representing Strength. There is Justice, holding a pair of 
scales in her right hand. A third is Love, with a crown 
upon her head. The inner side of the arch is filled by 
twelve representations of the months, in the style then in 
vogue for ornamenting illuminated manuscripts and calen- 
dars, and showing how people for the most part employed 
themselves in Venice during the different seasons. 



SCULPTURES ON ST. MARK'S 143 

To the figures on the inmost archivolt, no religious or theo- 
logical signification can be attached ; but it is perhaps precisely 
on this account that they are so very interesting. A cock is 
sitting upon a vine, pecking a bunch of grapes, while a fox 
looks up longingly from below ; a wolf is seen pursuing a lamb 
and an eagle clutches a hare. Round these scenes runs a 
band of foliage, issuing from a woman reclining on the 
ground, and offering her breast to a serpent and a man. 
" Mater terra " is the explanation of this enigmatical figure 
which we find in several Italian manuscripts of the Tenth, 
Eleventh, and Twelfth Centuries; and we may therefore 
conclude that this representation — possibly borrowed from 
the Northern, in no case from the ancient classic mythology — 
had already found its way elsewhere into Italy. How proud 
the citizens of Venice formerly were of the adornment of the 
fagade of their church is clearly proved by the fact that they 
placed a view of it in mosaic above one of the side-doors of 
the principal entrance. This is the sole Byzantine mosaic 
still remaining there, although at one time the whole of the 
lunettes were ornamented by them. 

The high opinion of the Byzantine reliefs of the facade 
entertained even by the foremost masters of the Renaissance 
is proved by Gentile Bellini's great picture still preserved in 
Venice, which represents the procession, with the relics of the 
cross, in the square of St. Mark's, and in which the whole 
width of the background is occupied by the fagade of the 
church, reproduced in every detail with marvellous precision. 



THE MOSAICS OF VENICE 

WILLIAM B. SCOTT 

PIETY and ecclesiastical observances were very favour- 
ite amusements with the Venetians, so much so, that 
some native historians have assigned that as the final 
cause of the long prosperity of the city. The great event in 
connection with this passion, one of the most remarkable in 
the history of relics, was the translation of the body of St. 
Mark from Alexandria to Venice, where it was in the course 
of three centuries enshrined in a church of the highest value 
in the history of Mediaeval architecture, and especially in 
the art of mosaic, examples of which it has preserved of 
various kinds and dates, while they have disappeared by time 
and accidents in Rome and elsewhere. Besides, St. Mark 
and his lion appear in a hundred different pictures of the 
school, they were bound up with the very life of the city, 
and became identified with it more completely than any 
other patron-saint ever was with the locality under his 
charge. So self-sufficient did the piety of the Venetians be- 
come, and so confident were they in the efficiency of their 
patron, that the Roman ecclesiastics said, with irony, that 
Venice had a pope of its own, il papa Marco. 

By the middle of the Ninth Century the sailors and 
merchant adventurers of the Lagoon had excelled all others 
on that side of Italy, and absorbed nearly all the trade of 
the East. At that time, Alexandria being under Mahome- 

144 



MOSAICS OF VENICE 145 

dan rule, a little fleet of Venetian ships was lying in the har- 
bour there, when the church wherein lay the remains of the 
Evangelist was pounced upon by the ruling powers, and the 
coloured marbles with which it was lined carefully removed 
for the purpose of decorating a rising palace. The Ma- 
homedans were by no means unmindful of relics, but the 
priests belonging to the church were frightfully agitated lest 
the holy body should suffer profanation. The Venetian 
merchants, whose plans were laid, came to their aid, offered 
their ships as a temporary asylum for the precious burden, 
and, having once got it on board in a basket, put to sea. 
Theft was indeed the only way in times of peace such invalu- 
able objects could be acquired, Mahomedans as well as Chris- 
tians held them so tenaciously; but this did not seem to dis- 
please the saint, who forthwith began a career of miracle- 
working, warning the captain of the particular ship to whose 
yardarm the sacred basket had been attached, in fear of the 
examination for contraband goods, to furl his sails, and so 
forth. When safely landed at the spot now occupied by the 
church of San Francisco della Vigna (which still possesses 
one of the earliest pictures of the school, the colossal Virgin 
of Negroponte), an angel was said to address him with the 
words Pax tibi, Marce, Evangelista meus, words afterwards 
placed on the open book under the paw of the lion, and the 
mad joy of the people overflowed in feasting, music, proces- 
sions, and prayers. The former patron, St. Theodore, was 
laid aside for the Evangelist, and, by the help of the Greeks, 
the most wonderfully rich mass of building, golden mosaic 



146 VENICE 

within and crusted marble of many colours without, began 
to rise. 

And yet it has been questioned whether any bones or body 
of a saint was ever brought there. Two centuries after, in 
1094, the Emperor Henry III. made an express pilgrimage 
to the shrine, when its contents could not be found, had dis- 
appeared, temporarily withdrawn themselves, as it was said. 
This untoward affair cast the city into mourning, until one 
morning the Sacristan perceived, on entering the church, a 
fragrant odour, and a brilliant light issuing from a particu- 
lar column. At first he feared a fire was breaking out, but 
on approaching he saw a human arm protruding from the 
stone. Very soon Doge and bishop, with priests in hun- 
dreds, were kneeling before the rent and illuminated column, 
when the protruding hand dropped a ring from one of its 
fingers into the bishop's bosom. The solid mass opened, 
and an iron coffin was visible, in which were the remains of 
St. Mark. This was on the 24th of July, ever after kept as 
a feast; but, strange to say, since that time the burial-place 
of the body has remained unknown. The secret was said to 
be confided to a few, but, indeed, the next Doge (or rather 
Carossio, the usurper of the Doge's throne) has been accused 
of stealing the relics. The ring, itself a sufficient curiosity, 
was stolen, and disappeared in 1585. 

In connection with this church, the art of mosaic, which 
had been practised long before by Greeks at Ravenna, entered 
Venice. With the mosaists came other artists, and on the 
island of Murano, besides the glass-workers, various Byzan- 



MOSAICS OF VENICE 147 

tine craftsmen began working. It is to this island and to 
these painters, of whom, however, individually we know 
nothing, we must look for the beginning of all the arts in 
Venice. 

The two outlying islands, too far away from the seventy 
or eighty on which the city stands to be considered a part of 
it, Torcello and Murano, are long strips of still thickly in- 
habited houses, with symptoms of antiquity as great as any 
part of the capital. To the last named island the manufac- 
ture of glass was confined by the government, and held in 
the profoundest secrecy; but there can be no doubt this 
secrecy was initiated by the workmen themselves, who were 
foreigners, and that the workshops of Constantinople con- 
tinued to a rather late time to export objects of art of all 
sorts, glass and pictures in particular, not only to Venice, 
but to all the coast towns of Italy. During the Sixth, Sev- 
enth, and Eighth Centuries the whole interior of Italy was 
overrun by northern conquerors, and production had entirely 
ceased. This being the case, the cities along the coast, 
Venice, Ravenna, Ancona, and round by Naples to Genoa, 
the rival at a later time of Venice, were better off than 
interior towns. Late Roman art during this period dies out. 

Venice itself, dating from this period, had no traditions 
whatever. No antique spirit inspired sculpture as at Pisa 
and Rome, nor even at a later time did it practically adopt 
the Renaissance, especially in architecture, like the rest of 
Italy. There seems to have been, in the early Venetian tem- 
per, a dislike to adopt benefits of an intellectual sort from 



148 VENICE 

the terra firma which the island power had subjugated, from 
Padua and Verona particularly; and the advantage of trade 
with the capital of the Eastern Empire continued the Byzan- 
tine influence in other matters. At the same time we must 
recognise in the architecture of the advancing city a quite 
independent character: sculpture there was none under Greek 
religious influence. It must be remembered also that East- 
ern Art not only continued its traditional forms and condi- 
tions, it retrograded; and its pictures gradually became more 
hieratic, parting from living nature altogether at the very 
time free artistic impulses were beginning in the West. 

We must not, therefore, expect to find any authentic pic- 
tures dating very early in Venice. There were painters on 
the Continent a century earlier. Giotto's noble work in the 
Arena was accomplished at the very commencement of the 
Fourteenth Century, 1306, and yet near as it was, and in 
the territory of the Republic, it appears to have had no influ- 
ence on the painters of Murano ; the most prosperous state 
in Italy, Venice, at that day continued without painters, and 
imported its art with its manufactures. 

The existing specimens of native mosaics, according to 
Kugler, are the mosaics in the church of St. Cyprian, in the 
town of Murano, completed in 882, representing the Virgin 
between saints and archangels. With incomparably more 
force, however, he says, the Byzantine type is represented in 
the Church of St. Mark, that curious fabric being begun in 
976, at the latest, the earliest wall and cupola pictures therein 
go back to the Eleventh, and perhaps to the Tenth. Century. 



MOSAICS OF VENICE 149 

The floor, the walls, and the pillars, half-way up, were cov- 
ered with the most costly marbles, while the rest of the 
interior — upper walls, waggon-roofs, and cupolas, compris- 
ing a surface of more than forty thousand square feet — was 
covered with mosaics on a gold ground; a gigantic work 
which even all the wealth of Venice spent six centuries in 
patching together. Thus it is that we find all the successive 
stages of development in these mosaics, down to " the lowest 
mannerism of the school of Tintoretto," perpetuated in the 
edifice. Many of the earlier are so noble in design, and so 
curious in an archaeological and mythological point of view, 
that it is surprising they have not been more studied and 
reproduced. The single figures are for the most part con- 
ventional and similar to others of the same personages else- 
where; but the long series of subjects from the Bible, begin- 
ning with the first verse of Genesis, are full of thought and 
mystical beauty. In all those showing the progressive stages 
of creation, God is represented in light yellow and bright 
garments, partly white, not as in later Art in deep red and 
blue approaching to black. He stands calmly, as he does 
not fly with rolling draperies and great feet extended, as in 
Michelangelo, or in Raphael's imitation of the same, and is 
attended by, or rather his acts are witnessed by, angels in 
light blue, one, two, or three; a single angel in the creation 
of Light (which is represented by bars of gold rushing out 
of two globes, one red, the other black), having one wing 
yellow, the other blue; three angels in the creation of the 
vegetable world. In others that follow, as in that wherein 



1 50 VENICE 

their Maker is telling our first parents to be fruitful and 
multiply and replenish the earth, we see the most unhesitat- 
ing candour of representation, showing the long journey and 
the many changes our ideas of the Deity have passed through 
since these mosaics were considered their fitting expression. 

The effect on the eye made by the interior of St. Mark's, 
which is only lit from above, is certainly gloomy and oppress- 
ive, but gorgeous and overpowering. We must remember 
that there was no need for light except at the altar, which 
was blazing with lamps, when the people assembled, and 
that glass windows were at their rarest at the time the church 
was planned; but it strikes upon the heart of the visitor as 
the piled-up offerings of men who were willing to buy the 
favour of Heaven with the richest gifts. From the tesselated 
pavement, undulating like the waves of the sea (whether or 
not intentionally is a question lately raised, and still unset- 
tled, although it is said the groining of the crypt is perfect), 
up to the gilt ironwork on the tops of the cupolas, it is com- 
plete. Outside the mosaics are for the most part late. The 
only old one of the five, over the five portals, shows the dif- 
ference between the decorative sense of the end of the Four- 
teenth Century and the beginning of the Eighteenth, when 
the others were mostly done. The spaces covered are con- 
cave hemispheres, and in the earlier mosaic the forms are 
made to bend with the curvature towards the centre, like 
reflections in a glass ball; the later resists the curvature of 
its own surface, contradicting the architectural basis, and 
looking like a picture applied. 



THE PIAZZA 

HENRY PERL 

WE find ourselves on the Piazza itself, which we 
are to study under the different aspects of differ- 
ent hours of the day — on the Piazza, with the 
encircling arcades, locally called the Procuratie, 1 in which 
shelter from the sun or the rain can always be obtained. The 
Piazza was cut across by a canal until the beginning of the 
Twelfth Century, from the banks of which rose the first 
Church of San Geminiano, and on the site of the Loggie of 
the Ducal Palazzo flourished a vegetable garden belonging to 
the nuns of San Zaccaria. At that remote period, the Senate, 
which then only meant the elders, when Puritanical simpli- 
city reigned amongst the island community, liked to retire 
there to meditate quietly on the State necessities of the rapidly 
growing state. In the Twelfth Century the canal was 
filled in and the church mentioned above pulled down, only 
for another to rise up, to which the same name was given, but 
which was destroyed by order of Napoleon in 1810. In 
1260 the first block was laid of the Piazza di San Marco, 
after the designs of Andrea Tirali, and from the same time 
may be said to date its rise to the glorious position it was to 
occupy as the nucleus of the life of Venice. 

1 The nine Procurators, second in power to the Doge alone, lived 
in the palaces of the Piazza: hence this name. 

151 



152 VENICE 

The central portion of the Piazza is 192 yards long by 90 
broad on the eastern or San Marco, and 61 on the western or 
Palazzo Reale end. 

What the Piazza di San Marco is to the Venetians can 
only be understood by those who are intimately acquainted 
with the inner life of the town. According to the time at 
which it is visited, it is the forum for the transaction of civil 
and political business, the market for buying and selling all 
manner of goods, the exchange, the place for the drawing of 
lotteries, the gondola station, the scene of church or secular 
fetes, the promenade of all classes, the summer rendez-vous of 
the upper ten, the open-air tribunal, at the time of the carni- 
val the ballroom the spot where artists of all kinds meet to 
discuss their affairs, the stage for religious ceremonies, the 
place to secure seats at the theatre, or to have your boots 
blacked — " La pattina, la pattina lucido! " rings the cry, re- 
minding us that well-polished shoes often make up for worn- 
out costumes — the place where the latest news is to be had 
by every one from all parts of the world; in a word, the 
meeting-point of all Venice — especially of those who have 
any interest in common — from porters and factory-girls to 
the elite of society. 

Every article of dress can be bought alike by ladies and 
gentlemen in the Piazza, and things are very chic there, too. 
Jewels and art fabrics, antique and modern, of every variety, 
are there displayed to suit every taste and purse; and at any 
hour of the day or night, without leaving the square, you 
can get a hot or a cold meal, anything you fancy to drink and 



THE PIAZZA 153 

sweetmeats to toy with; or you can have your hair cut or 
dressed; and last, not least, you can thoroughly steep your- 
self in an atmosphere of art, for from whatever point of view 
you look at this nucleus of all that is best in the whole world, 
3'our eyes will rest upon some scene of satisfying beauty. 

This noble marble-paved square, where dust and the noise 
of carriages, with the barking of dogs, are alike unknown, 
where the rain sinks away as soon as it has fallen, leaving the 
stones as clean and fresh as ever, is not alone the focus of the 
grandeur of Venezia, it is her very heart ; it is herself, for in 
it is contained all that her citizens can need. 

Differences of rank cease to exist face to face with this 
stone Ninon de L'Enclos, as a witty Frenchman dubbed the 
Piazza, and the unique square loses not one iota of its grand- 
eur thereby, as we can well understand when we remember 
that the banner of the Republic was set up in Venice in the 
Fourteenth Century. 

We saunter slowly up and down the Piazza, now sitting 
down outside some cafe, first one side and then another, 
meeting at every turn fresh details of the highest artistic 
value. 

But let us pause a moment to look up at the Clock Tower, 
with its big dial-plate visible from a long distance off. This 
tower is one of the curiosities of Venice, and was erected by 
Pietro Lombardo, one of the Lombardi family, with whose 
name so much of the best architecture in Venice is associated. 
La Torre dell' Orologio dates from 1496, and is remarkable 
for two black giants on a platform, which strike the 



154 VENICE 

hours with their hammers, and are called by the Venetians 
" i Marl!' From the Feast of the Epiphany to the beginning 
of Lent, and during the week between Ascension Day and 
Whit Sunday, the figures of the three kings who came to 
worship the Infant Christ may be seen to issue every hour 
from one of the two doors leading to the gallery of the 
tower where the Madonna sits enthroned, and passing in 
front of her they remove their crowns, bow low before her, 
and walk off to the second door on the other side, through 
which they disappear. This pretty little puppet-show caused 
an immense amount of excitement at the time of its erection, 
and even now, especially at Whitsuntide, crowds of country- 
folk collect to stare up at it. 

The general effect — we mean of the tower itself — is highly 
decorative, and is quite inseparable from our thoughts of 
Venice, for it rises up in our memories in connection with so 
many characteristic scenes. Truly a typical bit of local 
colouring is this trusty old Torre dell' Orologio, which 
greets us directly we set foot in Venice from the water-side 
and come in sight of the Piazzetta. 

The device of the noble Venetian lion with outstretched 
paws upon the cover of the Gospels, with the background of 
star-flecked azure blue sky, gave rise to a clever bon mot. In 
1797, when novelty was the rage, the motto of the lion of San 
Marco, " Pax tibi Marce Evangelista meus/' was converted 
into the formula "Droits de Vhomme et du citoyen " ; and a 
gondolier — the gondoliers of Venice are noted for their wit 
and ready repartee — cried, "II leone gha volta pagina" (the 



THE PIAZZA 155 

lion has turned over a new leaf). It was not long, however, 
before the lion of the Clock Tower, with all his winged 
comrades returned to the old "Pax tibi Marce Evangelista 
mens/* 

We meant only just to look at the time, but the stones of 
Venice have all such a lot to say for themselves that it is 
very difficult to tear ourselves away from them. It is eleven 
o'clock now, and at twelve o'clock we expect an acquaintance 
to have di collazione with us. 

But we will just turn into the Procuratie Vecchie first, to 
which a path leads direct from the Clock Tower. It is 
always pleasant to stroll about in these arcades, for they are 
well protected from the heat and dust. We pass jeweller's 
shop after jeweller's shop beneath this porticus with its fifty 
arches and the electric light almost deceives us into fancying 
we are looking at the gems by starlight. It is the same with 
the unrivalled verroterie, or glass-ware, which, with the 
crimson plush setting, presents quite a fairy-like appearance. 
The only thing, however, which we really cannot pass with- 
out stopping to examine it, is a very lovely Venetian necklace 
of thirty strings or fili as they are technically called, such as 
Venice is famed for all the world over. This wonderful 
collar is made of niello, or enamel beads, of about the size 
of a thaler, and the clasp consists of a many-coloured repre- 
sentation of the old arms of Venice or of the winged lion. 
The necklace is worn so that the clasp comes in front on the 
centre of the throat. A celebrated ornament of this kind, 
coveted by all foreign ladies, is that made by Angelo Mis- 



156 VENICE 

siaglfa, and as it consists of ducats of the finest gold, not one 
of which had ever been used, it must have cost a very large 
sum. 

It is really marvellous how many jewellers work and 
thrive in Venice. All Italians — especially the Venetians, 
who have more affinity with Orientals than their sisters of 
the rest of the peninsula — delight as much in decking them- 
selves out with jewels as the women of the Orient, and in 
spite of their love of economy in other respects, squander 
large sums upon their ornaments. 

Seated in front of the cafes, Trattorie, German Birrerle, 
and drinking-saloons called " American bars " and resem- 
bling those on the other side of the Atlantic, may be seen at 
this hour of the day many a daintily-dressed and befrizzled 
fop, with the inevitable flower, bought from the equally in- 
evitable flower-girl, in his button-hole, gazing into the blue, 
or, to be strictly accurate, up at the greyish-blue curtains 
which hang down from the roofing of the arcades, and flutter 
in the soft sea-breeze which always comes in to freshen the 
atmosphere about noon. 

As we stroll along in the cool stone grove, we pass yet 
more shops full of costly products of Venetian industry : glass 
mosaics, filigree-work, point lace, and antique silken textures, 
quaint life-sized figures carved in wood, furniture ornamented 
with iron filigree-work or carved and inlaid, all of truly 
artistic design and workmanship ; all manner of reproductions 
of masterpieces of pictorial art; antique and modern Vene- 
tian mirrors, memorial mosaics and other examples of mon- 



THE PIAZZA 157 

umental art, all Venetian specialties, peculiarly fascinating to 
the foreigner. The thought is first borne in upon us that in 
the inner labyrinths of this town, where at first sight life 
seems to be one long dream of pleasure, there must be many 
important industries and many skilled artisans. 

And now for a rapid glance at the Procuratie Nuove, that 
colonnade which is always cool even on the hottest June day. 
Here things appear very much the same in the early part of 
the day as they do over in the Procuratie Vecchie. Tripping 
about amongst the aristocrats, officials, and the privileged 
idlers so cleverly dubbed Disperati, are the flower-girls in 
their fresh youth and the middle-aged seller of wild flowers 
from the country, who reminds us, with his two baskets full 
of floral treasures, of some kitchen garden in late autumn. 
A group of painters always appear at Florian's about this 
time to take their collazione or dejeuner a la fourchette 
together. 

In this classical colonnade, with its thirty-six arches, there 
reigns a kind of hush, for here business never makes itself 
obtrusive, for though there are a good many old curiosity 
shops and other art warehouses, their owners have no need 
to advertise their wares — those who want them know well 
where to find them. The fact that we can go up from here 
to the regal apartments on the first floor, which every 
foreigner ought to visit, is yet another attraction of these 
Procuratie; and there, too, we can enjoy absolute quiet. 
And the " volte " once gone through, as they say in the 
breaking in of horses, we shall come in due course to the 



158 VENICE 

permanent art exhibitions, housed in rooms on the same floor 
in the last wing of the colonnade, which every one ought to 
see, for they form a kind of monthly record of the art in- 
dustries of Venice. 

Nearer the Piazzetta all is changed, and trade takes the 
place of art. Agents of ship-brokers, consignors of merchan- 
dise, offices of steamship companies, storehouses, etc., occupy 
this wing, and the frequenters of the neighbouring cafes are 
all busy people. The bank buildings, once the old Zecca or 
mint, the newly-built well-situated Cafe alia Borsa, looking 
out towards the Molo, occupying three arcades of the Zecca, 
form the finest point of view of the Procuratie Nuove, of 
which Sansovino drew the plans, carried out in 1582, un- 
fortunately with certain alterations, by Vincenzo Scamozzi. 

Time flies fast when you are talking about the past. Why, 
it is twelve o'clock already; we hear the twelve long-drawn- 
out strokes from the Clock Tower of San Marco, and at the 
same moment rings out a cannon-shot from San Giorgio, 
the signal for all Venice that lunch-time has arrived. In a 
moment the scene is changed. The Piazza is at once full of 
people eager for their mid-day meal; and at the same time 
appear hundreds of winged beggars whom nobody dreams of 
driving away, for their privileges have been secured to them 
for many long years. The pigeons of San Marco, which 
nest in great numbers amongst the arches and decorations of 
the various buildings, come down in flocks, circling about the 
church and Piazza as if, pensioners of the Republic as they 
are, they knew full well that they have a right to the food 



THE PIAZZA 159 

so amply provided for them by their many patrons and 
friends. A very beautiful picture is this daily gathering on 
the Piazza of the pigeons at noon and at two o'clock, a poetic 
picture which never loses its charm. Foreigners, especially, 
are very fond of feeding them, and ladies and children are 
lavish with corn which their favourites eat out of their hands. 
So tame and confiding have the gentle creatures become, 
through a long course of indulgence and petting, that they 
often settle on the hands, arms or shoulders of their friends. 

The cannon-shot was not only the signal for the birds to 
fly down from their sheltered niches behind the cornice, 
but also for all the clerks in the various offices to lay down 
their pens as if at the word of command from their chiefs, 
and hurry through the Procuratie to take their second break- 
fast, and enjoy their one short hour of rest during the day in 
one or another restaurant hard by. As a result, the Piazza 
is for some ten minutes full of life and animation, and even 
the late risers, who do not think it good form to appear 
before the mid-day cannon signal has been heard, may be seen 
gathering together now. 

All about the flagstaff's with their winged lions are charm- 
ing groups pausing to exchange greetings or to make up little 
luncheon parties. Though from these flagstaffs no longer 
float the silken banners of the Morea, Cyprus and Candia, 
symbolising the vast possessions of the Republic, the far- 
stretching influence of Venice is still illustrated by the many 
different nationalities represented here. It is at such a time 
as this that the Piazza appears at its best — at least, at its 



160 VENICE 

best during the hours of broad daylight, for of course at mid- 
day there is none of the glamour or mystery which have so 
much to do with the fascination exercised on all comers by the 
unrivalled Venezia. As in all works of art, every picture 
in Venice gains by something being left to the imagination of 
the spectator. It was this secret which Turner — most suc- 
cessful of all the exponents of Venetian efforts of colour and 
chiaroscuro — so completely fathomed in his many exquisite 
water-colour views of the fair city of his admiration ; and we 
may perhaps add that it was this same secret which Canaletto, 
in his more prosaic renderings of the same scenes, to a certain 
extent missed. 

But we are again wandering off into side issues and must 
return to the Piazza itself. From November to April, the 
fashionable world congregates to bask in the sunshine on the 
Piazza from two to four, or according to the new Italian 
form from the hour of fourteen to that of sixteen, and four 
times a week to listen to the civic or military band. 

On a bright clear autumn, or even winter day, the beauti- 
ful buildings on the Piazza, especially the fagade of San 
Marco with its marvellous wealth of architectural ornaments, 
are seen to the very greatest advantage. The atmosphere is 
so transparent, that every detail, however minute, can be dis- 
tinctly recognised, and there is about the whole a repose which 
in other lights is rather wanting to this very complex struc- 
ture. It is, in fact, a marked peculiarity of the whole of 
Venice, especially of the fine architectural groups on the 
Piazza di San Marco, that they appear totally different under 



THE PIAZZA 161 

different conditions, whether of atmosphere or of light, and 
affect the spectator in a number of different ways. 

We tear ourselves away from our contemplation of the 
inanimate stone beauties on every side, to give due attention 
to the many lovely and fascinating women in costly costumes 
who take eye and heart by storm. With faces half hidden by 
big white or rose-coloured silk sunshades, giving to them a 
touch of mystery, they are seated in the same Piazza where 
Shakespeare's Othello first saw his Desdemona, and where 
Bianca Cappello — this we know for very certain — gave Bon- 
aventurini the sign which preceded her flight from her 
father's house. Each one of these Venetian women is in her- 
self a poem. 

Women little know how wonderfully the beautiful Piazza 
di San Marco sets off their charms especially in the mild sun- 
shine of a winter or early spring day, when the old church 
literally radiates golden beams reflected from the fair young 
faces gazing up at its time honoured glories, and borrowing 
from it something of its triumphant elation of expression. 
And when the sun sinks lower, and the shadows lengthen, 
the capricious beauties in stone and gold become transformed 
in appearance, their features gradually grow paler — one is 
almost tempted to say more diaphanous — these marvellous 
creations in stone which affect us much as do the Thousand 
and One Nights in fiction, as the sunshine imprints on them 
the hurried farewell kiss of the short winter twilight, and day 
is suddenly converted into night, — soft, soothing gentle night., 
reminding us of the smile of some young mother, or of the 



1 62 VENICE 

rapt ecstasy of some devotee before the figure of the Redeemer 
in a quiet village church. How different does the whole scene 
appear on a hot summer's day, when it resembles more the 
dream of some Oriental potentate, with the medley of turrets 
and chapels, the golden cupolas, the crosses, the weather- 
cocks, the angels and saints, in which blue and gold pre- 
dominate, standing out darkly, yet distinctly and imposingly, 
from beneath their pale gold garlands of stone, whilst the 
greenish grey of the main material looks leaden by contrast. 
Or again at night what a change is there, when everything 
around is steeped in darkness, and there is no light in heaven 
but the pale light of stars; when all styles are blended into 
one harmonious whole, and the whole mighty mass of build- 
ings glows as with the white heat of a conflagration before 
everything falls to pieces in ashes; when the great lunettes 
gleam like huge diamonds, and the general effect is of some 
mysterious unfathomable choas, the very spires and towers 
resembling hieroglyphic writing traced upon the night sky 
by the invisible hand of some cyclops. 



THE DOVES OF ST. MARK'S 

HORATIO F. BROWN 

IN Venice the pigeons do not allow you to forget them, 
even if one desired to forget a bird that is so intimately 
connected with the city and with a great ceremony of 
that ancient Republic which has passed away. They belong so 
entirely to the place, and especially to the great square ; they 
have made their home for so many generations among the 
carvings of the Basilica, at the feet of the Bronze Horses, 
and under the massive cornices of the New Procuratie, that 
the great campanile itself is hardly more essential to the 
character of the Piazza than are these delicate denizens of 
St. Mark's. In the structure of the Ducal Palace the wants 
of the pigeons have been taken into account, and near the 
two great wells which stand in the inner courtyard, little 
cups of Istrian stone have been let into the pavement for the 
pigeons to drink from. On cold frosty mornings you may 
see them tapping disconsolately at the ice which covers their 
drinking troughs, and may win their thanks by breaking it 
for them. Or if the borin blows hard from the east, the 
pigeons sit in long rows under the eaves of the Procuratie; 
their necks drawn into their shoulders, and the neck feathers 
ruffled round their heads, till they have lost all shape, and 
look like a row of slate-coloured cannon balls. 

From St. Mark's the pigeons have sent out colonies to the 

163 



1 64 VENICE 

other churches and campi of Venice, they have crossed the 
Grand Canal, and roost and croon among the volutes of the 
Salute, or, in wild weather, wheel high and airily above its 
domes. They have even found their way to Malamocco 
and Mazzorbo; so that all Venice in the sea owns and pro- 
tects its sacred bird. But it is in St. Mark's that the 
pigeons "most do congregate"; and one cannot enter the 
piazza and stand for a moment at the corner without hearing 
the sudden rush of wings upon the air, and seeing the white 
under feathers of their pinions, as the doves strike backward 
to check their flight, and flutter down at one's feet in expec- 
tation of peas or grain. They are boundlessly greedy, and 
will stuff themselves till they can hardly walk, and the little 
red feet stagger under the loaded crop. They are not vir- 
tuous, but they are very beautiful. 

There is a certain fitness in the fact that the dove should 
be the sacred bird of the sea city. Both English " dove " 
and Latin columba mean the diver; and the dove uses the 
air much as the fish uses the sea. It glides, it dives, it shoots 
through its airy ocean ; it hovers against the breeze, or presses 
its breast against the sirocco storm, as you may see fish 
poised in their course against the stream ; then with a sudden 
turn it relaxes the strain and sweeps away down the wind. 
The dove is an airy emblem of the sea upon which Venice and 
the Venetians live. But more than that; the most permanent 
quality in the colour of the lagoons, where the lights are 
always shifting, is the dove-tone of sea and sky ; a tone which 
holds all colours in solution, and out of which they emerge 



THE DOVES OF ST. MARK'S 165 

as the water ripples or the cloud flakes pass; just as the 
colours are shot and varied on a young dove's neck. 

There is some doubt as to the origin of these flocks of 
pigeons which shelter in St. Mark's. According to one 
story, Henry Dandolo, the crusader, was besieging Candia; 
he received valuable information from the interior of the 
island by means of carrier-pigeons, and, later on, sent news 
of his successes home to Venice by the same messengers. In 
recognition of these services the government resolved to main- 
tain the carriers at the public cost; and the flocks of to-day 
are the descendants of the Fourteenth Century pigeons. The 
more probable tradition, however, is that which connects 
these pigeons with the antique ceremonies of Palm Sunday. 
On that festival the Doge made the tour of the Piazza, ac- 
companied by all the officers of state, the Patriarch, the for- 
eign ambassadors, the silver trumpets, — all the pomp of the 
ducal dignity. Among other largess of that day, a number 
of pigeons, weighted by pieces of paper tied to their legs, used 
to be let loose from the gallery where the Bronze Horses 
stand, above the western door of the church. Most of the 
birds were easily caught by the crowd, and kept for their 
Easter dinner; but some escaped, and took refuge in the upper 
parts of the palace and among the domes of Saint Mark's. 
The superstition of the people was easily touched, and the 
birds that sought the protection of the saint were thenceforth 
dedicated to the patron of Venice. The charge of support- 
ing them was committed to the superintendents of the corn 
stores, and the usual hour for feeding the pigeons was nine 



1 66 VENICE 

o'clock in the morning. During the revolution of 1797 the 
birds fared as badly as-the aristocracy; but when matters 
settled down again the feeding of the pigeons was resumed 
by the municipality, and takes place at two in the afternoon, 
though the incessant largess of strangers can leave the birds 
but little appetite for their regular meal. 

In spite of the multitudes of pigeons that haunt the squares 
of the city, a dead pigeon is as rare to see as a dead donkey on 
the mainland. It is a pious opinion that no Venetian ever 
kills a pigeon, and apparently they never die ; but the fact that 
they do not increase so rapidly as to become a nuisance instead 
of a pleasure, lends some colour to the suspicion that pigeon 
pies are not unknown at certain tables during the proper 
season. 



THE COLUMNS OF THE PIAZZETTA 

JOHN RUSKIN 

GO first into the Piazzetta, and stand anywhere in 
• the shade, where you can well see its granite pillars. 
Your Murray tells you that they are " famous," 
and that the one is "surmounted by the bronze lion of St. 
Mark, the other by the statue of St. Theodore, the Protector 
of the Republic." 

It does not, however, tell you why, or for what the pillars 
are " famous." Nor, in reply to a question which might 
conceivably occur to the curious, why St. Theodore should 
protect the Republic by standing on a crocodile ; nor whether 
the " bronze lion of St. Mark " was cast by Sir Edwin 
Landseer, — or some more ancient and ignorant person ; — nor 
what these rugged corners of limestone rock, at the bases of 
the granite, were perhaps once in the shape of. Have you 
any idea why, for the sake of any such things, these pillars 
were once, or should yet be, more renowned than the Monu- 
ment, or the column of the Place Vendome, both of which 
are much bigger? 

Well, they are famous, first, in memorial of something 
which is abetter worth remembering than the fire of London, 
or the achievements of the great Napoleon. And they are 
famous, or used to be, among artists, because they are beau- 

'167 



1 68 VENICE 

tiful columns; nay, as far as we old artists know, the most 
beautiful columns at present extant and erect in the conven- 
iently visitable world. 

Each of these causes of their fame I will try in some dim 
degree to set before you. 

I said they were set there in memory of things, — not of 
the man who did the things. They are to Venice, in fact, 
what the Nelson column would be to London if, instead of 
a statue of Nelson and a coil of rope, on the top of it, we 
had put one of the four Evangelists, and a saint, for the praise 
of the Gospel and of Holiness; — trusting to the memory of 
Nelson to our own souls. 

However, the memory of the Nelson of Venice, being now 
seven hundred years old, has more or less faded from the 
heart of Venice herself, and seldom finds its way into the 
heart of a stranger. Somewhat concerning him, though a 
stranger, you may care to hear, but you must hear it in quiet ; 
so let your boatman take you across to San Giorgio Mag- 
giore; there you can moor your gondola under the steps in 
the shade, and read in peace, looking up at the pillars when 
you like. 

In the year 1117, when the Doge Ordelafo Falier had 
been killed under the walls of Zara, Venice chose, for his 
successor, Domenico Michiel, Michael of the Lord, " Catto- 
lico nomo e audace!' a Catholic and brave man, the servant 
of God and of St. Michael. 

Venice was sincerely pious, and intensely covetous. But 
not covetous merely of money. She was covetous first of 



COLUMNS OF THE PIAZZETTA 169 

fame; secondly, of kingdom; thirdly, of pillars of marble 
and granite, such as these that you see ; lastly, and quite prin- 
cipally, of the relics of good people. 

To the nation in this religiously covetous hunger, Bald- 
win appealed, a captive to the Saracen. The Pope sent let- 
ters to press his suit, and the Doge Michael called the State 
to Council in the Church of St. Mark. There he, and the 
Primate of Venice, and her nobles, and such of the people as 
had due entrance with them, by way of beginning the busi- 
ness, celebrated the Mass of the Holy Spirit. Then the 
Primate read the Pope's letters aloud to the assembly; then 
the Doge made the assembly a speech. And there was no 
opposition party in that parliament to make opposition 
speeches ; and there were no reports of the speech next morn- 
ing in any Times or Daily Telegraph. And there were no 
plenipotentiaries sent to the East, and back again. But the 
vote passed for war. 

The Doge left his son in charge of the State, and sailed 
for the Holy Land, with forty galleys and twenty-eight 
beaked ships of battle — "ships which were painted with divers 
colours," far seen in pleasant splendour. Some faded like- 
ness of them, twenty years ago, might be seen in the painted 
sails of the fishing-boats which lay crowded, in lowly lustre, 
where the development of civilisation now only brings black 
steam-tugs, to bear the people of Venice to the bathing- 
machines of Lido, covering their Ducal Palace with soot, 
and consuming its sculptures with sulphurous acid. 

The beaked ships of the Doge Michael had each a hun- 



170 VENICE 

dred oars; — each oar pulled by two men, not accommodated 
with sliding seats, but breathed well for their great boat- 
race between the shores of Greece and Italy; — whose names, 
alas, with the names of their trainers, are noteless in the jour- 
nals of the barbarous time. 

They beat their way across the waves, nevertheless, 1 to the 
place where Dorcas worked for the poor, and St. Peter 
lodged with his namesake tanner. There, showing first but 
a squadron of a few ships, they drew the Saracen fleet out to 
sea, and so set upon them. 

And the Doge, in his true Duke's place, first in his beaked 
ship, led for the Saracen admiral's, struck her and sunk her. 
And his host of falcons followed to the slaughter; and to the 
prey also, — for the battle was not without gratification of 
the commercial appetite. The Venetians took a number of 
ships containing precious silks and " a quantity of drugs and 
pepper." 

After which battle, the Doge went up to Jerusalem, there 
to take further counsel concerning the use of his Venetian 
power; and, being received there with honour, kept his 
Christmas in the mountain of the Lord. 

In the council of war that followed, debate became stern 
whether to undertake the siege of Tyre or Ascalon. The 
judgments of men being at pause, the matter was given to 
the judgment of God. They put the names of the two cities 
in an urn, on the altar of the Church of the Sepulchre. An 

1 Oars, of course, for calm and adverse winds, only; bright sails 
full to the helpful breeze. 



COLUMNS OF THE PIAZZETTA 171 

orphan child was taken to draw the lots, who, putting his 
hand into the urn, drew out the name of Tyre. 

Which name you may have heard before, and read per- 
haps words concerning her fall — careless always when the 
fall took place, or whose sword smote her. 

She was still a glorious city, still queen of the treasures of 
the sea; chiefly renowned for her work in glass and in purple; 
set in command of a rich plain, " irrigated with plentiful 
and perfect waters, famous for its sugar-canes ; ' fortissimaf 
she herself, upon her rock, double walled towards the sea, 
treble walled to the land ; and, to all seeming, unconquerable 
but by famine." 

You will not expect me here, at St. George's steps, to give 
an account of the various mischief done on each other with 
the dart, the stone, and the fire, by the Christian and Saracen, 
day by day. The steady siege went on, till the Tyrians lost 
hope, and asked terms of surrender. They obtained security 
of person and property, to the indignation of the Christian 
soldiery, who had expected the sack of Tyre. The city was 
divided into three parts, of which two were given to the King 
of Jerusalem, the third to the Venetians. 

While the Doge Michael fought for the Christian King 
at Jerusalem, the Christian Emperor at Byzantium attacked 
the defenceless states of Venice, on the mainland of Dal- 
matia, and seized their cities. Whereupon the Doge set sail 
homewards, fell on the Greek islands of the iEgean, and 
took the spoil of them; seized Cephalonia; recovered the lost 
cities of Dalmatia; compelled the Greek Emperor to sue for 



172 VENICE 

peace, — gave it, in angry scorn; and set his sails at last for 
his own Rialto, with the sceptres of Tyre and Byzantium to 
lay at the feet of Venice. Spoil he also brought, enough, of 
such commercial kind as Venice valued. These pillars that 
you look upon, of rosy and grey rock; and the dead bodies 
of St. Donato and St. Isidore. He thus returned in 1126. 

Of these things, then, the two pillars before you are 
" famous " in memorial. What in themselves they possess 
deserving honour, we will next try to discern. But you 
must row a little nearer to the pillars, so as to see them 
clearly. 

I said these pillars were the most beautiful known to me : — 
but you must understand this saying to be of the whole pillar- 
group of base, shaft, and capital, — not only of their shafts. 

You know so much of architecture, perhaps, as that an 
" order " of it is the system connecting a shaft with its capi- 
tal and cornice. And you can surely feel so much of archi- 
tecture, as that if you took the heads off these pillars, and 
set the granite shaft simply upright on the pavement, they 
would perhaps remind you of ninepins or rolling-pins, but 
would in no wise contribute either to respectful memory of 
the Doge Michael, or to the beauty of the Piazzetta. 

Their beauty which has been so long instinctively felt by 
artists, consists then first in the proportion, and then in the 
propriety of their several parts. Do not confuse proportion 
with propriety. An elephant is as properly made as a stag; 
but it is not so gracefully proportioned. In fine architecture, 
and all other fine arts, grace and propriety meet. 



COLUMNS OF THE PIAZZETTA 173 

I will take the fitness first. You see that both these pil- 
lars have wide bases of successive steps. 1 You can feel that 
these would be " improper " round the pillars of an arcade 
in which people walked, because they would be in the way. 
But they are proper here, because they tell us the pillar 
is to be isolated, and that it is a monument of importance. 
Look from these shafts to the arcade of the Ducal Pal- 
ace. Its pillars have been found fault with for wanting 
bases. But they were meant to be walked beside without 
stumbling. 

Next you see the tops of the capitals of the great pillars 
spread wide, into flat tables. You can feel, surely, that these 
are entirely " proper," to afford room for the statues they 
are to receive, and that the edges, which bear no weight, 
may " properly " extend widely. But suppose a weight of 
superincumbent wall were to be laid on these pillars? The 
extent of capital which is now graceful, would then be 
weak and ridiculous. 

Thus far of propriety, whose simple laws are soon satis- 
fied: next, of proportion. 

You see that one of the shafts, — the St. Theodore's, — is 
much slenderer than the other. 

One general law of proportion is that a slender shaft 
should have a slender capital, and a ponderous shaft, a pon- 
derous one. 

But had this law been here followed, the companion pil- 

1 Restored, — but they always must have had them, in some such 
proportion. 



174 VENICE 

lars would have instantly become ill-matched. The eye 
would have discerned in a moment the fat pillar and the 
lean. They would never have become the fraternal pillars — 
" the two " of the Piazzetta. 

With subtle, scarcely at first traceable, care, the designer 
varied the curves and weight of his capitals; and gave the 
massive head to the slender shaft, and the slender capital to 
the massive shaft. And thus they stand in symmetry, and 
uncontending equity. 

Next, for the form of these capitals themselves, and the 
date of them. 

You will find in the guide-books that though the shafts 
were brought home by the Doge in 1126, no one could be 
found able to set them up until the year 1171, when a cer- 
tain Lombard, called Nicholas of the Barterers, raised them, 
and for reward of such engineering skill, bargained that he 
might keep tables for forbidden games of chance between 
the shafts. Whereupon the Senate ordered that executions 
should also take place between them. 

But now of the capitals themselves. If you are the least 
interested in architecture, should it not be of some impor- 
tance to you to note the style of them? Twelfth Century 
capitals, as fresh as when they came from the chisel, are not 
to be seen even* day, or everywhere ; — much less capitals like 
these a fathom or so broad and high! And if you know 
the architecture of England and France in the Twelfth Cen- 
tury, you will find these capitals still more interesting from 
their extreme difference in manner. Not the least like our 



COLUMNS OF THE PIAZZETTA 175 

clumps and humps and cushions, are they? For these are 
living Greek work, still; not savage Norman or clumsy 
Northumbrian, these; but of pure Corinthian race; yet. with 
Venetian practicalness of mind, solidified from the rich clus- 
ters of light leafage which were their ancient form. You 
must find time for a little practical cutting of capitals your- 
self, before you will discern the beauty of these. There is 
nothing like a little work with the fingers for teaching the 
eyes 

What I want you to notice now, is but the form of the 
block 0: Estrian stone, usually with a spiral, more or less 
elaborate, on each of its projecting angles. For there is 
infinitude of history in that solid angle, prevailing over the 
light Greek leaf. 

That is related to our humps and clumps at Durham and 
Winchester. Here is. indeed, Norman temper, prevailing 
over Byzantine : and it means. — the outcome of that quarrel 
of Michael with the Greek Emperor. It means — wc s lem 
for eastern life, in the mind of Venice. It means her fel- 
lowship with the western chivalry; her triumph in the Cru- 
sades, — triumph over her own foster nurse, Byzantium. 

Which significances cf it, and many others with them, 
if we would follow, we must leave our stone-cutting for a 
little while and map out the chart of Venetian history from 
its beginning into such masses as we may remember without 
confusion. 

But since this will take time, and we cannot quite tell 
how long it may be before we get back to the Twelfth Cen- 



176 VENICE 

tury again, and to our Piazzetta shafts, let me complete 
what I can tell you of these at once. 

In the first place, the Lion of St. Mark is a splendid piece 
of Eleventh or Twelfth Century bronze. I know that by 
the style of him; but have never found out where he came 
from. 1 I may now chance on it, however, at any moment 
on other quests. Eleventh or Twelfth Century the lion — 
Fifteenth, or later, his wings; very delicate in feather- 
workmanship, but with little lift or strike in them ; decorative 
mainly. Without doubt his first wings were thin sheets of 
beaten bronze, shred in plumage; far wider in their sweep 
than these. 2 

The statue of St. Theodore, whatever its age, is wholly 
without merit. I can't make it out myself, nor find record 
of it: in a stonemason's yard, I should have passed it as 
modern. But this merit of the statue is here of little 
consequence. 

St. Theodore represents the power of the Spirit of God in 
all noble and useful animal life, conquering what is venom- 
ous, useless, or in decay: he differs from St. George in con- 
tending with material evil, instead of with sinful passion : the 
crocodile on which he stands is the Dragon of Egypt ; slime- 

1 " He " — the actual piece of forged metal, I mean. 

2 1 am a little proud of this guess, for before correcting this sen- 
tence in type, I found the sharp old wings represented faithfully in 
the wood cut of Venice in 1480, in the Correr Museum. Durer, in 
1500, draws the present wings; so that we get their date fixed 
within twenty years. 



COLUMNS OF THE PIAZZETTA 177 

begotten of old, worshipped in its malignant power, for a 
God. St. Theodore's martyrdom was for breaking such 
idols; and with beautiful instinct Venice took him in her 
earliest days for her protector and standard-bearer, repre- 
senting the heavenly life of Christ in men, prevailing over 
chaos and the deep. 



1 



THE DUCAL PALACE 

JOHN RUSKIN 

THE charm which Venice still possesses, and 
which for the last fifty years has rendered it the 
favourite haunt of all the painters of picturesque 
subjects, is owing to the effect of the palaces belonging to the 
period we have now to examine, mingled with those of the 
Renaissance. 

The effect is produced in two different ways. The Re- 
naissance palaces are not more picturesque in themselves than 
the club-houses of Pall Mall ; but they become delightful by 
the contrast of their severity and refinement with the rich and 
rude confusion of the sea life beneath them, and of their 
white and solid masonry with the green waves. Remove 
from beneath them the orange sails of the fishing boats, the 
black gliding of the gondolas, the cumbered decks and rough 
crews of the barges of traffic, and the fretfulness of the green 
water along their foundations, and the Renaissance palaces 
possess no more interest than those of London or Paris. BuV 
the Gothic palaces are picturesque in themselves, and wielu 
over us an independent power. Sea and sky, and every other 
accessory might be taken away from them, and still they 
would be beautiful and strange. They are not less striking 
in the loneliest streets of Padua and Vicenza (where many 
were built during the period of the Venetian authority in those 
cities) than in the most crowded thoroughfares of Venice 

178 



THE DUCAL PALACE 179 

itself; and ff they could be transported into the midst of 
London, they would still not altogether lose their power over 
the feelings. 

The best proof of this is in the perpetual attractiveness of 
all pictures, however poor in skill, which have taken for their 
subject the principal of these Gothic buildings, the Ducal 
Palace. In spite of all architectural theories and teachings, 
the paintings of this building are always felt to be delight- 
ful; we cannot be wearied by them, though often sorely 
tried ; but we are not put to the same trial in the case of the 
palaces of the Renaissance. They are never drawn singly, or 
as the principal subject, nor can they be. The building 
which faces the Ducal Palace on the opposite side of 
the Piazzetta is celebrated among architects, but it is not 
familiar to our eyes; it is painted only incidentally, for the 
completion, not the subject of a Venetian scene; and even 
the Renaissance arcades of St. Mark's Place, though fre- 
quently painted, are always treated as a mere avenue to its 
Byzantine church and colossal tower. And the Ducal 
Palace itself owes the peculiar charm which we have hitherto 
felt, not so much to its greater size as compared with other 
Gothic buildings, or nobler designs (for it never yet has 
been rightly drawn), as to its comparative isolation. The 
other Gothic structures are as much injured by the continual 
juxtaposition of the Renaissance palaces, as the latter are 
aided by it; they exhaust their own life by breathing it into 
the Renaissance coldness: but the Ducal Palace stands com- 
paratively alone, and fully expresses the Gothic power. 



180 VENICE 

And it is just that it should be so seen, for it is the original 
of nearly all the rest. It is not the elaborate and more 
studied development of a national style, but the great and 
sudden invention of one man, instantly forming a national 
style, and becoming the model for the imitation of every 
architect in Venice for upwards of a century. It was the 
determination of this one fact which occupied me the greater 
part of the time I spent in Venice. It had always appeared 
to me most strange that there should be in no part of the city 
any incipient or imperfect types of the form of the Ducal 
Palace; it was difficult to believe that so mighty a building 
had been the conception of one man, not only in disposition 
and detail, but in style; and yet impossible, had it been 
otherwise, but that some early examples of approximate Gothic 
form must exist. There is not one. The palaces built be- 
tween the final cessation of the Byzantine style, about 1300, 
and the date of the Ducal Palace (1320-1350), are all com- 
pletely distinct in character, and there is literally no trans- 
itional form between them and the perfection of the Ducal 
Palace. Every Gothic building in Venice which resembles 
the latter is a copy of it. I do not mean that there was no 
Gothic in Venice before the Ducal Palace, but that the mode 
of its application to domestic architecture had not been deter- 
mined. The real root of the Ducal Palace is the apse of the 
church of the Frari. The traceries of that apse, though 
earlier and ruder workmanship, are nearly the same in 
mouldings, and precisely the same in treatment (especially in 
the placing of the lions' heads), as those of the great Ducal 



THE DUCAL PALACE 181 

Arcade; and the originality of thought in the architect of 
the Ducal Palace consists in his having adopted those tra- 
ceries, in a more highly developed and finished form to civil 
uses. 

The reader will observe that the Ducal Palace is arranged 
somewhat in the form of a hollow square, of which one side 
faces the Piazzetta, and another the quay called the Riva 
dei Schiavoni; the third is on the dark canal called the Rio 
del Palazzo, and the fourth joins the Church of St. Mark. 

Of this fourth side, therefore nothing can be seen. Of the 
other three sides we shall have to speak constantly ; and they 
will be respectively called, that towards the Piazzetta, the 
" Piazzetta Facade " ; and that towards the Riva dei Schi- 
avoni, the " Sea Facade " ; and that towards the Rio del 
Palazzo, the " Rio Facade." This Rio, or canal, is usually 
looked upon by the traveller with great respect, or even 
horror, because it passes under the Bridge of Sighs. It is, 
however one of the principal thoroughfares of the city; and 
the bridge and its canal together occupy in the mind of a 
Venetian, very much the position of Fleet Street and Temple 
Bar in that of a Londoner, — at least at the time when Temple 
Bar was occasionally decorated with human heads. The two 
buildings closely resemble each other in form. 

We must now proceed to obtain some rough idea of the 
appearance and distribution of the palace itself; but its 
arrangement will be better understood by supposing our- 
selves raised some hundred and fifty feet above the point in 
the lagoon in front of it, so as to get a general view of the 



1 82 VENICE 

Sea Fagade and Rio Facade (the latter in very steep per- 
spective), and to look down into its interior court. We 
have merely to notice that, of the two bridges seen on the 
right, the uppermost, above the black canal, is the Bridge of 
Sighs; the lower one is the Ponte della Paglia, the regular 
thoroughfare from quay to quay, and I believe, called the 
Bridge of Straw, because the boats which brought straw 
from the mainland used to sell it at this place. The corner 
of the palace rising above this bridge, and formed by the 
meeting of the Sea Fagade and Rio Fagade, will always be 
called the Vine angle, because it is decorated by a sculpture 
of the drunkenness of Noah. The angle opposite will be 
called the Fig-tree angle, because it is decorated by a sculp- 
ture of the Fall of Man. The long and narrow range of 
building, of which the roof is seen in perspective behind this 
angle, is the part of the palace fronting the Piazzetta; and 
the angle under the pinnacle most to the left of the two 
which terminate it will be called the Judgment angle. Within 
the square formed by the building is seen its interior court 
(with one of its wells), terminated by small and fantastic 
buildings of the Renaissance period, which face the Giants' 
Stair, of which the extremity is seen sloping down on the left. 
The great fagade which fronts the spectator looks south- 
ward. Hence the two traceried windows lower than the 
rest, and to the right of the spectator, may be conveniently 
distinguished as the " Eastern Windows." There are two 
others like them, filled with tracery, and at the same level, 
which look upon the narrow canal between the Ponte della 



THE DUCAL PALACE 183 

Paglia and the Bridge of Sighs: these we may conveniently 
call the " Canal Windows." 

On the party wall, between the second and third windows, 
which faces the eastern extremity of the Great Council 
Chamber, is painted the Paradise of Tintoret; and this wall 
will therefore be hereafter called the " Wall of the Paradise." 

In nearly the centre of the Sea Facade, and between the 
first and second windows of the Great Council Chamber, is 
a large window to the ground, opening on a balcony, which 
is one of the chief ornaments of the palace, and will be 
called in future the " Sea Balcony." 

The facade which looks on the Piazzetta is very nearly 
like this to the Sea, but the greater part of it was built in 
the Fifteenth Century, when people had become studious of 
their symmetries. The side windows are all on the same 
level. Two light the west end of the Great Council Cham- 
ber, one lights a small room anciently called the Quarantia 
Civil Nuova; the other three, and the central one, with a 
balcony like that to the Sea, light another large chamber, 
called Sala del Scrutinio, or " Hall of Enquiry," which ex- 
tends to the extremity of the palace above the Porta della 
Carta. 

The reader is now well enough acquainted with the topog- 
raphy of the existing building to be able to follow the ac- 
counts of its history. 

The Ducal Palace, which was the great work of Venice, 
was built successively in the three styles. There was a Byzan- 
tine Ducal Palace, a Gothic Ducal Palace, and a Renaissance 



1 84 VENICE 

Ducal Palace. The second superseded the first totally; a 
few stones of it (if indeed so much) are all that is left. 
But the third superseded the second in part only, and the ex- 
isting building is formed by the union of the two. We shall 
review the history of each in succession. 1st. The Byzan- 
tine Palace. 

The year of the death of Charlemagne, 813, the Venetians 
determined to make the island of Rialto the seat of the 
government and capital of their state. Their Doge, Angelo 
or Agnello Participazio, instantly took vigorous means for 
the enlargement of the small group of buildings which were 
to be the nucleus of the future Venice. He appointed per- 
sons to superintend the rising of the banks of sand, so as to 
form more secure foundations, and to build wooden bridges 
over the canals. For the offices of religion he built the 
Church of St. Mark; and on, or near the spot where the 
Ducal Palace now stands, he built a palace for the administra- 
tion of the government. 

The history of the Ducal Palace therefore begins with the 
birth of Venice, and to what remains of it, at this day, is 
entrusted the last representation of her power. 

Of the exact position and form of this palace of Parti- 
cipazio little is ascertained. Sansovino says that it was built 
near the Ponte della Paglia, and answeringly on the Grand 
Canal towards San Giorgio ; that is to say, in the place now 
occupied by the Sea Facade; but this was merely the popu- 
lar report of his day. There can be no doubt whatever 
that the palace at this period resembled and impressed the 



THE DUCAL PALACE 185 

other Byzantine edifices of the day, such as the Fondaco 
dei Turchi, etc. ; and that, like them, it was covered with 
sculpture, and richly adorned with gold and colour. 

In the year 1106, it was for the second time injured by 
fire, but repaired before 11 16, when it received another em- 
peror, Henry V. (of Germany), and was again honoured 
by imperial praise. Between 11 73 and the close of the 
century, it seems to have been again repaired and much 
enlarged by the Doge Sebastian Ziani. Sansovino says that 
this Doge not only repaired it, but " enlarged it in every 
direction " ; and after this enlargement, the palace seems 
to have remained untouched for a hundred years, in the 
commencement of the Fourteenth Century, the works of the 
Gothic Palace were begun. The old palace, of which half 
remains to this day, was built by Sebastian Ziani. 

So far, then, of the Byzantine Palace. 

2d. The Gothic Palace. — The reader, doubtless, rec- 
ollects that the important change in the Venetian govern- 
ment which gave stability to the aristocratic power took 
place about the year 1297, under the Doge Pietro Grade- 
nigo, a man thus characterised by Sansovino: — "A prompt 
and prudent man, of unconquerable determination and great 
eloquence, who laid, so to speak, the foundations of the 
eternity of this republic, by the admirable regulations which 
he introduced into the government." The Serra del Consi- 
glio fixed the numbers of the Senate within certain limits, 
and it conferred upon them a dignity greater than they 
had ever before possessed. It was natural that the altera- 



1 86 VENICE 

tion in the character of the assembly should be attended by 
some change in the size, arrangement, or decoration of the 
chamber in which they sat. 

We accordingly find it recorded by Sansovino, that " in 
1 301 another saloon was begun on the Rio del Palazzo 
under the Doge Gradenigo, and finished in 1309, in which 
year the Grand Council first sat in it" In the first year, 
therefore, of the Fourteenth Century, the Gothic Ducal 
Palace of Venice was begun; and as the Byzantine Palace, 
was, in its foundation, coeval with the state, so the Gothic 
Palace, was, in its foundation, coeval with that of the aris- 
tocratic power. Considered as the principal representation 
of the Venetian school of architecture, the Ducal Palace 
is the Parthenon of Venice, and Gradenigo its Pericles. 

But the newly constituted Senate had need of other addi- 
tions to the ancient palace besides the Council Chamber. A 
short, but most significant, sentence is added to Sansovino's 
account of the construction of that room. " There were 
near it!' he says, " the Cancellaria, and the Gheba or Gabbia, 
afterwards called the Little Tower." 

Gabbia means a " cage " ; and there can be no question 
that certain apartments were at this time added at the 
top of the palace and on the Rio Fagade, which were to 
be used as prisons. Whether any portion of the old Tor- 
resella still remains is a doubtful question; but the apart- 
ments at the top of the palace, in its fourth story, were 
still used for prisons as late as the beginning of the Seven- 
teenth Century. I wish the reader especially to notice that 



THE DUCAL PALACE 187 

a separate tower or range of apartments was built for this 
purpose, in order to clear the government of the accusa- 
tions so constantly made against them, by ignorant or partial 
historians, of wanton cruelty to prisoners. The stories 
commonly told respecting the " piombi " of the Ducal Palace 
are utterly false. Instead of being, as usually reported, 
small furnaces under the leads of the palace, they were 
comfortable rooms, with good flat roofs of larch, and care- 
fully ventilated. 1 The new chamber, then, and the pris- 
ons, being built, the Great Council first sat in their retired 
chamber on the Rio in the year 1309. 

It appears from the entry still preserved in the Archivio, 
and quoted by Cadorin, that it was on the 28th of Decem- 
ber, 1340, that the commissioners appointed to decide on 
this important matter gave in their report to the Grand 
Council, and that the decree passed thereupon for the com- 
mencement of a new Council Chamber on the Grand Canal. 

The room then begun is the one now in existence, and its 
building involved the building of all that is best and most 
beautiful in the present Ducal Palace, the rich arcades of 
the lower stories being all prepared for sustaining this Sala 
del Gran Consiglio. 

Its decorations and fittings, however, were long in com- 

1 Bettio, Lettera: "Those who wrote without having seen them 
described them as covered with lead ; and those who have seen them 
know that, between their flat timber roofs and the sloping leaden 
roof of the palace, the interval is five metres where it is least, and 
nine where it is greatest." 



1 88 VENICE 

pletion; the paintings on the roof being only executed in 
1400. They represented the heavens covered with stars, 
this being, says Sansovino, the bearings of the Doge Steno. 
The Grand Council sat in the finished chamber for the first 
time in 1423. In that year the Gothic Ducal Palace was 
completed. It had taken, to build it, the energies of the 
entire period which I have above described, as the central 
one of her life. 

3rd. The Renaissance Palace. — I must go back a 
step or two, in order to be certain that the reader under- 
stands clearly the state of the palace in 1423. The works 
of addition or renovation had now been proceeding, at inter- 
vals, during a space of a hundred and twenty-three years. 
Three generations at least had been accustomed to witness 
the gradual advancement of the form of the Ducal Palace 
into more stately symmetry, and to contrast the works of 
sculpture and painting with which it was decorated, — full 
of the life, knowledge, and hope of the Fourteenth Cen- 
tury, — with the rude Byzantine chiselling of the palace of 
the Doge Ziani. The magnificent fabric just completed, of 
which the new Council Chamber was the nucleus, was now 
habitually known in Venice as the " Palazzo Nuovo " ; and 
the old Byzantine edifice, now ruinous and more manifest 
in its decay by its contrast with the goodly stones of the 
building which had been raised at its side, was of course 
known as the " Palazzo Vecchio." That fabric, however, 
still occupied the principal position in Venice. The new 
Council Chamber had been erected by the side of it towards 



THE DUCAL PALACE 189 

the Sea; but there was not the wide quay in front, the 
Riva dei Schiavoni, which now renders the Sea Facade as 
important as that to the Piazzetta. There was only a 
narrow walk between the pillars and the water; and the 
old palace of Ziani still faced the Piazzetta, and interrupted, 
by its decrepitude, the magnificence of the square where 
the nobles daily met. Every increase of the beauty of the 
new palace rendered the discrepancy between it and the 
companion building more painful; and then began to arise 
in the minds of all men a vague idea of the necessity of 
destroying the old palace, and completing the front of the 
Piazzetta with the same splendour as the Sea Fagade. . . . 
The Great Council Chamber was used for the first time 
on the day when Foscari entered the Senate as Doge — 
the 3rd of April, 1423, . . . and the following year, 
on the 27th of March, the first hammer was lifted up against 
the old palace of Ziani. 

That hammer stroke was the first act of the period prop- 
erly called the " Renaissance." It was the knell of the 
architecture of Venice, — and of Venice herself. 

I have no intention of following out, in their intricate 
details, the operations which were begun under the Foscari 
and continued under succeeding Doges till the palace as- 
sumed its present form: but the main facts are the follow- 
ing: The palace of Ziani was destroyed; the existing fagade 
to the Piazzetta built, so as both to continue and to resemble, 
in most particulars, the work of the Great Council Cham- 
ber. It was carried back from the Sea as far as the Judg- 



i 9 o VENICE 

ment angle; beyond which is the Porta della Carta, begun 
in 1439, and finished in two years, under the Doge Foscari; 
the interior buildings connected with it were added by the 
Doge Christopher Moro (the Othello of Shakespeare) in 
1462. 

But whatever buildings, old or new, stood on this spot 
at the time of the completion of the Porta della Carta were 
destroyed by another great fire of 1479, together with so 
much of the palace on the Rio that, though the saloon of 
Gradenigo, then known as the Sala de' Pregadi, was not 
destroyed, it became necessary to reconstruct the entire 
facades of the portion of the palace behind the Bridge 
of Sighs, both towards the court and canal. This work 
was entrusted to the best Renaissance architects of the close 
of the Fifteenth and opening of the Sixteenth Centuries; 
Antonio Ricci executing the Giant's Staircase, and on his 
absconding, Pietro Lombardo taking his place. The whole 
work must have been completed towards the middle of the 
Sixteenth Century. 

But the palace was not long permitted to remain in this 
finished form. Another terrific fire, commonly called the 
great fire, burst out in 1574, and destroyed the inner fit- 
tings and all the precious pictures of the Great Council 
Chamber, and of all the upper rooms on the Sea Facade, 
and most of those on the Rio Facade, leaving the building a 
mere shell, shaken and blasted by the flames. It was de- 
bated in the Great Council whether the ruin should not 
be thrown down, and an entirely new palace built in its 



THE DUCAL PALACE 191 

stead. The opinions of all the leading architects of Venice 
were taken, respecting the safety of the walls, or the pos- 
sibility of repairing them as they stood. These opinions, 
given in writing, have been preserved, and published by 
the Abbe Cadorin in the work already so often referred to; 
and they form one of the most important series of documents 
connected with the Ducal Palace. 

The repairs necessarily undertaken at this time were 
however extensive, and interfere in many directions with 
the earlier work of the palace: still the only serious altera- 
tion in its form was the transposition of the prisons, formerly 
at the top of the palace, to the other side of the Rio del 
Palazzo ; and the building of the Bridge of Sighs, to connect 
them with the palace, by Antonio da Ponte. The completion 
of this work brought the whole edifice into its present form ; 
with the exception of alterations in doors, partitions, and 
staircases among the inner apartments, not worth noticing, 
and such barbarisms and defacements as have been suffered 
within the last fifty years, by, I suppose, nearly every build- 
ing of importance in Italy. 



INTERIOR OF THE DUCAL PALACE 

THEOPHILE GAUTIER 

INTO this strange edifice, — at once a palace, senate, 
tribunal and prison under the government of the Re- 
public, — we enter by a charming door in St. Mark's 
corner, between the pillars of St. John of Acre and the 
great, thick column supporting the entire weight of the 
immense white and rose marble wall that gives such an 
original aspect to the ancient palace of the Doges. 

This door, called Delia Carta, is in charming architec- 
tural taste, adorned with little columns, trefoils and statues, 
without counting the inevitable, indispensable winged lion 
of St. Mark, and leads into the great interior court by a 
vaulted passage. This somewhat singular arrangement of 
an entrance so to speak placed without the edifice to which it 
leads has the advantage of not interfering in any way with 
the unity of its fagades, which are not broken by any pro- 
jection except that of their monumental windows. 

Before passing under the arcade, let us glance over the 
exterior of the palace to note a few of its interesting de- 
tails. Above the thick and robust column of which we have 
just spoken, there is a bas-relief of savage aspect represent- 
ing the Judgment of Solomon with Mediaeval costume 
and a certain barbarity of execution that renders it hard to 
recognise the subject. The bas-relief opens into the long 
twisted little columns that cordon each angle of the building. 

192 



INTERIOR OF PALACE 193 

On the fagade of the Piazzetta, upon the second gallery, 
two columns of red marble mark the place whence the 
death sentences were read,— a custom that still exists to-day. 
All the capitals are in exquisite taste and inexhaustible va- 
riety. Not one is a repetition. They contain chimserae, 
children, angels, fantastic animals, and sometimes Biblical 
or historical subjects, mingled with foliage, acanthus, fruits 
and flowers that forcibly show up the poverty of invention 
of our modern artists: several bear half effaced inscriptions 
in Gothic characters, which in order to be fluently read 
would require a skilful paleographer. There are twenty- 
seven arcades on the Mole and eighteen on the Piaz- 
zetta. 

The Porta della Carta leads you to the Giants' Stair- 
case, which is not itself gigantic, but takes its name from 
the two colossi of Neptune and Mars, a dozen feet in height, 
by Sansovino, standing on pedestals at the top of the flight. 
This staircase, leading from the courtyard to the second 
gallery that decks the interior as well as the exterior of 
the palace, was erected during the dogedom of Agostino 
Barbarigo by Antonio Rizzo. It is of white marble, dec- 
orated by Domenico and Bernardo of Mantua with ara- 
besques and trophies in very slight relief, but of such 
perfection as to be the despair of all the ornamenters, 
carvers and engravers in the world. It is no longer archi- 
tecture, but goldsmith's work, such as Benvenuto Cellini 
and Vechte alone could produce. Every morsel of this 
open balustrade is a world of invention; the weapons and 



i94 VENICE 

casques of every bas-relief, each one different, are of the 
rarest fancy and the purest style; even the slabs of the steps 
are ornamented with exquisite niello, and yet who knows 
anything of Domenico and Bernardo of Mantua? The 
memory of mankind, already wearied with a hundred illus- 
trious names, refuses to retain any more, and consigns to 
oblivion names that are deserving of all glory. 

If we turn around on reaching the head of this staircase, 
we see the inner side of the doorway of Bartolomeo, flow- 
ered over with volutes and plated with little columns and 
statues, with remnants of blue painting starred with gold 
in the tympanums of the arch. Among the statues, one in 
particular is very remarkable: it is an Eve by Antonio 
Rizzio of Verona, carved in 1471. The other side, facing 
the wells, was built in 1607 in the style of the Renaissance, 
with columns and niches full of antique statues from 
Greece, representing warriors, orators, and divinities. A 
clock and a statue of the Duke Urbino, carved by Gio 
Bandini of Florence in 1625, complete this severe and classic 
front. 

Letting your glance fall towards the middle of the court, 
you see what look like magnificent bronze altars. They are 
the mouths of the cisterns of Nicolo de Conti and Fran- 
cesco Alberghetti. The first dates from 1556, the second 
from 1559. Both are masterpieces. Besides the obligatory 
accompaniment of griffins, sirens, and chiaerae, various 
aquatic subjects taken from the Scriptures, are represented in 
them. One could not imagine such richness of invention, 



INTERIOR OF PALACE 195 

such exquisite taste, such perfection of carving, nor such 
finished work as is displayed by the kerbs of these wells 
enriched with the polish and verdigris of time. Even the 
inside of the mouth is plated with thin sheets of bronze 
branched with a damaskeen of arbesques. These two wells 
are said to contain the best water in Venice. 

Near the Giants' Staircase is an inscription framed with 
ornaments and figures by Alessandro Vittoria recalling the 
passage of Henry III. through Venice; and farther on in 
the gallery at the approach to the golden staircase are two 
statues by Antonio Aspetti, Hercules and Atlas bending 
beneath the starry firmament, the weight of which the 
mighty hero is about to transfer to his own bull-neck. This 
magnificent staircase, adorned with stuccos by Vittoria and 
paintings by Giambatista, is by Sansovino and leads to the 
library which now occupies several rooms of the palace of 
the Doges. To attempt to describe them one by one would 
be a work of patience and erudition that would require 
a whole volume. 

The old hall of the Grand Council is one of the largest 
you could find anywhere. The Court of Lions at the Al- 
hambra would easily go inside it. On entering, you stand 
still, struck with astonishment. By an effect that is some- 
what frequently found in architecture, this hall looks much 
larger than the building that contains it. A sombre and 
severe wainscoting where bookcases have taken the place 
of the seats of the old senators, serves as a plinth for im- 
mense paintings that extend all around the walls, broken 



196 VENICE 

only by windows, below a line of portraits of the Doges 
and a colossal gilded ceiling of incredible exuberance of orna- 
mentation, with great compartments, square, octagonal and 
oval, with foliage, volutes, and rock-work in a taste scarcely 
appropriate to the style of the palace, but so imposing and 
magnificent that you are quite dazzled by it. Unfortu- 
nately the pictures by Paul Veronese, Tintoret, Palma the 
Younger, and other great masters, that filled these superb 
frames have now been removed on account of indispensable 
repairs. 

That side of the hall by which you enter is entirely occu- 
pied by a gigantic Paradise by Tintoret, which contains a 
world of figures. It is a strong painting and it is a pity that 
time has so greatly darkened it. The smoky shadows that 
cover it belong to a Hell rather to a Glory. Behind this 
canvas, a fact that we have not been in a position to verify, 
it is said that there is an ancient Paradise painted in green 
camaieu upon the wall by Guariento of Padua in 1365. It 
would be curious to be able to compare this green Paradise 
with the black one. It is only Venice that has one depth 
of painting below another. 

This hall is a kind of Versailles museum of Venetian 
history, with the difference that if the exploits are not 
so great, the painting is far better. It is impossible to im- 
agine a more wonderful effect than is produced by this 
immense hall entirely covered by these pompous paintings 
that excel in the Venetian genius. Above these great his- 
torical scenes is a row of portraits of the Doges by Tin- 



INTERIOR OF PALACE 197 

toret, Bassano, and other painters; as a rule they have a 
smoky and bearded appearance, although, contrary to the 
impression we form, they have no beards. In one corner 
the eye is arrested at an empty and black frame that makes 
a hole as dark as a tomb in this chronological gallery. It 
is the space that should be occupied by the portrait of 
Marino Faliero, as told by this inscription: Locus Marini 
Phaletri, decapitati pro criminibus. All the effigies of Ma- 
rino Faliero were also destroyed, so that his portrait may 
be said to be undiscoverable. However, it is pretended 
that there is one in the possession of an amateur at Verona. 
The republic wanted to destroy the memory of this haughty 
old man who brought it within an inch of ruin in revenge for 
a youth's jest that was sufficiently punished by a few month's 
imprisonment. To finish with Marino Faliero, let us note 
that he was not beheaded at the head of the Giants' Stair- 
case, as is represented in several prints, since that stairway 
was not built till a hundred and fifty years later, but in the 
opposite corner at the other end of the gallery, upon the top 
of a flight of steps since demolished. 

We will now name the most celebrated chambers of the 
palace without pretending to describe them in detail. In 
the chamber dei Scarlatti the chimney-piece is covered with 
marble reliefs of the finest workmanship. On the impost 
also is seen a very curious bas-relief in marble represent- 
ing the Doge Loredan on his knees before the Virgin and 
Child, accompanied by several saints, — an admirable piece 
of work by an unknown artist. The Hall of the Shield: 



198 VENICE 

here the arms of the living Doge were emblazoned. It is 
hung with geographical charts by the Abbe Grisellini that 
trace the discoveries of Marco Polo, so long treated as 
fabulous, and of other illustrious Venetian travellers, such 
as Zeni and Cabota. Here also is kept a globe, found on 
a Turkish galley, engraved upon wood and of strange con- 
figuration being in accordance with Oriental ideas and cov- 
ered with Arabic characters cut with marvellous delicacy; 
also a great bird's-eye view of Venice by Albert Durer, 
who made a long stay in the city of the Doges. The aspect 
of the city is generally the same as to-day, since for three 
centuries one stone has not been laid upon another in the 
Italian cities. 

In the Hall of the Philosophers a very beautiful chimney- 
piece by Pietro Lombardo is to be noticed. The Hall of 
Stuccos, so called because of its ornamentation, contains 
paintings by Salviati, Pordenone, and Bassano: the Virgin, 
a Descent from the Cross, and the Nativity of Jesus Christ. 
The banquet-hall is where the Doge used to give certain 
feasts of etiquette, — diplomatic dinners, as we should say 
to-day. Here we see a portrait of Henry III. by Tintoret, 
very strong and very fine; and facing the door is the Adora- 
tion of the Magi, a warm painting by Bonifazio, that great 
master of whose work we possess scarcely anything in Paris. 
The Hall of the Four Doors has a square anteroom, the 
ceiling of which, painted by Tintoret, represents Justice 
giving the sword and scales to the Doge Priuli. The four 
doors are adorned with statues of grand form by Giulio 



INTERIOR OF PALACE 199 

del Moro, Francesco Caselli, Girolamo Campagna, and 
Alessandro Vittoria; the paintings that enrich the room 
are masterpieces. 

From this hall let us pass into the Anti-Collegio : it is 
the waiting-room of the ambassadors, the architecture being 
by Scamozzi. The envoys of the various powers who came 
to present their credentials to the Most Serene Republic 
could scarcely have been in a hurry to be introduced: the 
masterpieces crowded with such lavishness into this splendid 
anteroom would induce any one to be patient. The four 
pictures near the door are by Tintoret, and among his best. 
These are the subjects: Mercury and the Graces; Vulcan s 
Forge; Pallas, accompanied by Joy and Abundance, chasing 
Mars; and Ariadne consoled by Bacchus. Apart from a few 
rather forced foreshortenings and a few violent attitudes 
in which this master took pleasure on account of their dif- 
ficulty, we can do nothing but praise the virile energy of 
touch, the warmth of colour, the truth of the flesh, the 
life-like power and that forceful and charming grace that 
distinguishes mighty talents when they have to render sweet 
and gentle subjects. 

But the marvel of this sanctuary of art is the Rape of 
Europa, by Paul Veronese. What lovely white shoulders! 
what blonde curling tresses! what round and charming 
arms! what smiles of eternal youth in this wonderful can- 
vas in which Paul Veronese seems to have spoken his final 
word! Sky, clouds, trees, flowers, meadows, seas, tints, 
draperies, all seem bathed in the glow of an unknown 



2oo VENICE 

Elysium. If we had to choose one single example of all 
Paul Veronese's work, this is the one we should prefer: it 
is the most beautiful pearl in this rich casket. 

On the ceiling the great artist has seated his dear Venice 
on a golden throne with that amplitude of drapery and that 
abundant grace of which he possesses the secret. For this 
Assumption, in which Venice takes the place of the Virgin, 
he always knows how to find fresh blues and new radiance. 

The magnificent chimney-piece by Aspetti, a stucco cor- 
nice by Vittoria and Bombarda, blue camaieu by Sebastian 
Rizzi, and columns of verde antique and Cipolin marble 
framing the door complete this marvellous decoration in 
which shines the most beautiful of all luxuries, that of 
genius. 

The reception-hall, or the Collegio, comes next. Here 
we find Tintoret and Paul Veronese, the former red and 
violent, the other azure and calm; the first, suited to great 
expanses of wall, the second, for immense ceilings. We will 
not speak of the camaieu, the grisailles, the columns of verde 
antique, the little arches of flowered jasper and sculptures 
by G. Campagna: we should never finish and those are 
the ordinary sumptuous details in the palace of the Doges. 

There are many other admirable rooms in the Ducal 
Palace that we have not mentioned. The Hall of the 
Council of Ten, the Hall of the Supreme Council, the 
Hall of the State Inquisitors, and many others. Upon 
their walls and ceilings sit side by side the apotheosis of 
Venice and the Assumption of the Virgin; the Doges on 



INTERIOR OF PALACE 201 

their knees before some Madonnas or other; and mytho- 
logical heroes or fabulous gods; the Lion of St. Mark and 
Jupiter's eagle; the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and a 
Neptune; Pope Alexander III. and a short-kilted Allegory; 
mix up stories from the Bible and holy Virgins beneath 
baldaquins with captures of Zara embroidered with more 
numerous episodes than one of Ariosto's songs, surprises of 
Candia and jumbles of Turks; carve the doorcases; cover 
the cornices with mouldings and stucco; set up statues in 
every corner; lay gold upon everything that is not covered 
by the brush of a superior artist; say: " All those who have 
laboured here, even the obscure, had twenty times as much 
talent as our celebrities of the present day; and the greatest 
masters have employed their lives here " ; and then you 
will have a feeble idea of all this magnificence that defies 
description. Painters, whose names are not uttered once 
a century, here hold their place in most terrible proximi- 
ties. You would say that genius was in the air at that 
climacteric epoch of human progress and that nothing was 
easier than to produce masterpieces. The sculptors espe- 
cially, of whom no one ever speaks, display extraordinary 
talent and are not in the least inferior to the greatest 
painters. 



THE CARNIVAL 

CHARLES YRIARTE 

A T the Carnival it is from the Piazza and the Piaz- 
I \ zetta that the processions start and all the exhi- 
-*- -^bitions and performances of this mad season. And 
everything takes place to-day just as it did yesterday and 
as it did two hundred, or even five hundred years ago, as is 
shown in a pretty composition by Vanutelli which we found 
in the Gallery of the Princess Matilda. The painter has 
placed his scene under the arcades of the Ducal Palace; it is 
there that to-day a whole troupe of masqueraders come to 
play their lazzi, for the Carnival of Venice, which is just as 
celebrated as the Roman Carnival and which has served as a 
theme for poets and musicians and on which Gozzi, Paga- 
nini and Theophile Gautier have embroidered their Pizzi- 
cati, is not so dead as people would have us believe; the 
tradition exists if the genius of the people has changed. The 
Carnival week, though quieter than it used to be, still attracts 
strangers; it is the season of intrigues and festivals when 
the entire population seems intoxicated by the very air. 
There are two very distinct parts in the Carnival of Venice: 
the carnival of the street and the carnival of the drawing- 
room. Not long ago people went masqued to St. Mark's 
Place and the Fenice, and gave themselves up to merry mys- 
tifications that recalled the good old days of Venice in the 



THE CARNIVAL 203 

Eighteenth Century; this was the age of supper-parties, 
barcarolles, serenades and Venetian festivals, which last 
words include everything. To-day the aristocracy is re- 
served and discreet ; a few swell masquerades, a few masqued 
balls given in a setting worthy of the costumes, a few gay 
suppers and a few serenades, and the festival is over. 
Guardi, the painter of delicate touch, the piquant colourist, 
shows us the balls in the Ducal Palace, the Ridotti, the 
promenaders on the Piazza with their black velvet masques, 
their three cornered hats, and that Venetian cloak that has 
become the livery for carnival gaieties throughout Europe. 
Of all this nothing remains now, and what is left is difficult 
to describe and would escape the notice of a passing stranger ; 
one must be of Venetian origin to enter, or even be ad- 
mitted to, these pleasures and to appreciate their charm. 

But the street is more lively; the corporations club 
together and give the city a show; each year they have a 
new idea and a new way of executing it: an allegorical 
car, a Bucentaur, a scene full of life and colour in which 
the celebrated heroes, Vesta Zenda and Tato are seen, and 
the illustratious Pantaloon harangues the crowd from his 
throne erected on the Piazzetta in front of the two large 
granite columns. Pantaloon has arrived at the head of his 
procession which assembled in the court of the deserted con- 
vent of San Sepolcra; he goes the whole length of the Riva 
dei Schiavoni, preceded by his Turkish guards; bridges have 
been thrown across the canals that intersect the quay, so 
that nothing interrupts the masquerade along its route. 



204 VENICE 

The painters of the Arsenal and painters of other buildings, 
all in costume, form a guild and sing choruses; other civic 
guilds form themselves into brass bands, for there are no 
festivals without music in Venice. 

The procession is long and the whole city follows it; 
the banners that are carried in front of it are borne by 
men dressed as Turks, and another body pretends to guard 
them; behind them follow the Chioggiotti, the fish-vendors 
of Chioggia, who carry on their arms elegant baskets filled 
with fish made of sugar, which they throw into the balconies 
all along the way; and the whole street presents a number 
of those grotesque scenes that have been preserved by 
Guardi's brush. 

After the Chioggiotti, who have their own band, usually 
costumed in mediaeval dress, come the Epigrams of the 
year: these are monster masques, gigantic personages who 
recall those occurring in the carnivals of the northern cities 
of France; they are numerous and always represent a satiri- 
cal epigram in allusion to a celebrity of the season, or some 
actual event is symbolised by each person. Often a political 
personage is chosen for the allusion, and many times, in- 
deed, the authorities have had to intervene and prevent the 
caricature of a foreign minister or sovereign. 

After the great masques come groups of all kinds, follow- 
ing according to popular fancy; but there is nearly always 
a general idea for the whole procession, the burlesque 
groups forming detached episodes, framed in the whole; 
nobody is deceived by anything and there is great applause. 



THE CARNIVAL 205 

Arriving at the Piazzetta, Pantaloon, who is king of the 
festival, mounts his throne and harangues the crowd in 
Venetian dialect, and, as he can wag his tongue glibly, the 
people reward him with acclamations. He descends, re- 
sumes his place at the head of the procession and goes to 
the Piazza, in the centre of which a circular ball-room, 
about the height of the Cafe Florian and Cafe Quadri, has 
been erected. The orchestra takes its place and the most 
important masquers lead the dances; the Piazza is filled, 
and the crowd is lively, joyous and bright with colour; a 
great number of people wear fancy costumes and take an 
active part in the amusements. 

This is the overture to the popular festival, the inaugura- 
tion of the Carnival, and as these people thoroughly under- 
stand how to provide amusements, every day brings a new 
pleasure and surprise. In the evening the Piazza we are 
describing is fairy-like; it is very brilliantly lighted by a 
method used only on these occasions: if it is fine weather 
you can walk about in dancing-shoes, for as the Piazza is 
paved, it is a veritable ball-room; the cafes are crowded at 
this time; the tables are even carried into the middle 
of the Piazza and you can stroll about in the open air as if 
you were at a gigantic ball. 



RIVA DEI SCHIAVONI 

JULIA CARTWRIGHT 

NEXT to the Piazza the Riva dei Schiavoni is, per- 
haps, the most attractive place in Venice. It is 
not only for the sake of the view, although that 
is magnificent, or for S. Giorgio- — best beloved of all lesser 
Venetian shrines — opposite; but it is because there you see 
whatever is left of the vivacity and joyousness of Venetian 
life. At Florian's you may see the more elegant side of 
society, more of the dandies and the well dressed ladies, and 
the foreigners and tourists, but on the Riva you have the 
life of the people. 

This is the place for the artist who knows dexterously 
to combine groups of figures with shipping and buildings. 
He has but to take his stand on a balcony overlooking the 
Riva, or under the vine-trellis of one of the numerous cafes, 
or osterias, along the quay, and he will see every type and 
variety conceivable. Sailors of all countries throng the doors, 
ships from all parts of the world are seen by the side of 
those red and orange Chioggia sails, which are familiar objects 
in all Venetian drawings. The scene is always lively and 
amusing. From early dawn the shrill voices of the street- 
sellers make themselves heard under your windows. The 
cries "Aqua! polenta! pomi d'oro, limonada! " mingle with 
those of shell and bead-sellers, of flower-girls and fishermen, 

206 



RIVA DEI SCHIAVONI 207 

praising their wares, of gondoliers, and facchini seeking 
custom or quarrelling among themselves, and cursing each 
other's remotest descendants in the most voluble language. 
Towards mid-day a change comes over the scene. There 
is a lull in the busy traffic, a pause in the movement of the 
crowd. The cries become fewer and feebler, until by de- 
grees they die out entirely, and slumber creeps over the 
noisiest and most pertinacious vendors of anise-water and 
macaroni. Those two gondoliers, who half-an-hour ago 
were calling heaven and earth to witness the eternal hatred 
which they vowed against each other, are peacefully sleep- 
ing side by side, on the steps of the quay, in the most con- 
fiding trustfulness. Even the little, sharp-faced fruit-seller, 
who has been crying the ambrosial sweetness of his peaches, 
exactly under your window, until you wonder he has any 
voice left, is silent now, and leans against his stall, nodding 
his head over the piles of ripe fruit before him. Sleep 
has overtaken all alike, and the only voices to be heard 
proceed from parties of indefatigable English, who, in- 
tent on pursuing their daily round of sight-seeing regard- 
less of the sun's meridian power, come in search of a gon- 
dolier. As the hours go by, and the heat of the day passes, 
another change comes over the Riva. A steamer arrives, 
there is a rush of people to the quay, the sleeping mummies 
on the pavement lift their heads and rise slowly to their 
feet. One by one the sellers return, the cries begin exactly 
as before, only a trifle shriller and more persistent than 
before. The plot thickens as the afternoon wears away, 



208 VENICE 

and a fresh breeze springs up from the lagoon. Guitar- 
players and barrel-organs wake the echoes, marionettes and 
puppet-shows attract small crowds of children and idlers, 
boatmen and beggars return to the charge with the vigour 
of giants refreshed with wine, the bargaining and the 
wrangling and shouting become louder and more bewilder- 
ing than ever. 

And now it is the hour of promenade, when tlie beauty 
and fashion of Venice take the air, and you may see ladies 
wrapped in lace mantillas go by, wearing gold or pearl 
pins in their hair and waving large fans to and fro as they 
walk, followed by groups of friends and admirers. They 
are dark-eyed beauties for the most part, but occasionally 
you may see a maiden with the golden hair which Tintoret 
and Paris Bordone loved to paint, and you may be sure 
la biondina will excite more than one exclamation of frank 
admiration from the passers-by. Often the handsomest faces 
are those of the women of the humbler classes, who also 
come out to take the air on the Riva at this hour. Some 
of them wear large straw hats, and others heavy gold chains 
and earrings, and often silver arrows stuck through their 
classically braided tresses, while all, whatever their dress 
may be, have a gaily-coloured handkerchief on their 
shoulders. 

The scene on the sea is as lively as that on shore. The 
lagoon swarms with gondolas and barcas, and the bright 
colours of the striped awnings and crimson or blue and white 
scarves of the gondoliers enliven the blackness of the boats 



RIVA DEI SCHIAVONI 209 

as they go flitting by across the waters. Now and then 
the note of a guitar is heard from a gondola, and if it be 
a festa a boatful of men and boys are sure to be there, 
singing in their rich musical voices the refrain of the favour- 
ite chorus: 

" Venezia, gemma triatica, sposa del mar" 

the one perpetual strain of which Venetian boatmen never 
seem to tire. 

So it all goes on for hours, the music and the voices and 
the movement of feet passing up and down, while the west- 
ern sun is pouring its glory over the shore, and Ducal Pal- 
ace and lagoon and the tall campanile of S. Giorgio yonder 
are steeped in one rosy glow. 

Long after it has dropped into the sea, and the stars have 
come out in the sky, they will be promenading, talking, and 
laughing still, and the voices will wax merrier, and the 
laughter more joyous as the pleasant twilight hour deepens. 
But if you have had enough of the noise and of the daz- 
zling brightness which does at last begin to weary your 
eyes in Venice, you have only to turn a few steps aside 
from the gay Riva, and stand on the lonely bridge which 
joins it to the Piazzetta. It is called the Ponte della Paglia, 
and crosses the narrow channel which flows between the 
Palace and the Prisons. There it is silent enough, and no 
one will disturb you as you look down at the dark waters 
lapping the massive cornices and iron bound windows of 
the majestic Rio facade. Not a sound breaks the stillness, 



210 VENICE 

except it be the hum of distant voices and music on the 
Riva, or the splash of an oar as a solitary gondola comes 
stealing along by the blackened walls, and under the tomb- 
like structure of the Bridge of Sighs, hanging in mid-air as if 
it had been flung aloft on purpose to catch the moonbeams 
which go straying into the waters below. It is to these sud- 
den contrasts that we owe half the charm of Venice. 



BY SIDE CANALS 

LINDA VILLARl 

IN a forlorn corner of Venice, not far from the Ma- 
donna dell' Orto, where Cima da Conegliano's great 
picture is enshrined, we come to the grass-grown 
Campo St. Avis, with its blistered garden walls and cluster 
of crumbling buildings. There is plenty of time to look 
about us before the bottle-nosed custodian comes shuffling 
over the bridge with the keys of the little-frequented church. 
We have come to seek the earliest productions of Carpaccio, 
and here they are on the wall of the nave, eight in all and 
mere daubs, although the promising daubs of a gifted twelve- 
year-old boy. They are scenes from the Old Testament — 
Job and his Comforters; Solomon and the Queen of Sheba; 
Tobit and the Angel; Moses and the Tables of the Law; 
the Golden Calf; Joshua before the Walls of Jericho; Jo- 
seph's Brethren Imploring Forgiveness; Jacob and Rachel 
at the Well. 

These early efforts of the future illustrator of the legends 
of St. George, St. Ursula, St. Jerome, etc., have little historic 
worth, but much historic interest, since all crudity and stiff- 
ness notwithstanding, they show the budding dramatic power 
and keen observation of the future master. And they are 
the only records of his youth, for few details are known of 
Carpaccio's life. Even the date of his birth is uncertain, 

211 



212 VENICE 

but may be placed towards the middle of the Fifteenth 
Century, as he was an aged man at the time of his death 
in 1524. The first of his great works is dated 1490, the 
last 1522. It is a disputed point whether his name was 
Scarpaccia or Carpaccio, a disputed point whether he was a 
native of Venice or Istria; but recent research has almost 
decided this question in favour of the latter place. The 
St. Avis panels bear the painter's usual signature. In 
the quaint representation of Jacob's meeting with Rachel, 
we at once notice the horse stooping to feed. The action 
is very truthful, and the forelegs have the defect — dispro- 
portionate length — common to all Carpaccio's horses. But, 
as in his after works, the story is capitally told, the central 
idea seized, although the brush is feebly handled, and the 
drawing that of a child. 

This poverty-stricken church must once have seen better 
days, for it possesses several excellent works of art. There is a 
fresco by Bonifazio — The Last Supper — almost identical in 
composition with the oil-painting by the same master in the 
Florence Academy. The Judas is specially remarkable as 
a study in red and brown. Here, too, are a couple of Tie- 
polo's chefs d'oeuvre: the Scourging in the Temple, and 
Christ Sinking Under the Cross. They are noble paintings 
both for colour and design, and painted in the master's 
most serious mood. No frolicsome angels mar the solemnity 
of the themes. Nevertheless, like all this master's works, 
they bear a prophetic kinship with those of the French 
school of thirty years back. They might have strayed from 




SANUDO VANAXEL CANAL 



BY SIDE CANALS 213 

the walls of the Luxembourg to this decaying Venetian 
church. 

The last of the Venetian colourists is unfortunate in his 
surroundings, for some of his best productions are hidden in 
the Palazzo Labia, in the Canareggio quarter, near the rail- 
way station, and are seldom discovered by strangers. The 
palace stands sideways to the canal, divided from it by a 
stretch of pavement. It fronts an unsavoury Fondamento, 
whence, after ringing at a blistered door, you pass into a 
spacious entrance hall, foul with odours unmentionable and 
strewed with flakes of plaster dropped from the cracked and 
bulging vault above. A grandiose staircase faces the mouldy 
courtyard in the centre of the block. Ascending its grimy 
steps, you are met by a frowzy portress, fit guardian of decay, 
whose slip-shod feet lead the way into a lofty saloon with 
wide cracks in the walls and depressions in the floor corre- 
sponding with the unsightly bulges seen from below. Here 
are Tiepolo's frescoes of the loves of Antony and Cleo- 
patra, and the Allegory of Fortune. The visitor's first im- 
pression is one of blank disappointment, for the story of the 
Egyptian queen is coarsely treated, though vigorous in de- 
sign ; and this buxom, blowzy Cleopatra, with ruff and stom- 
acher and powdered toupee, so ostentatiously melting her 
pearl before the enamoured eyes of her Roman General, is, to 
say the least, a droll anachronism. But there is a charming 
group of pipers and trumpeters in the background, delicate, 
vaporous figures, somewhat after the manner of Hamon. 
On the opposite wall is seen the arrival of Mark Antony, 



2H VENICE 

and on the ceiling the Allegory of Fortune, a truly excellent 
work. It is sad that treasures like these should be left to 
perish amid all this dust and decay! A school of mosaic 
workers occupies the front rooms, and you have to pick your 
way among heaps of glass cubes, pots of cement, and a con- 
fusion of benches, tables and boys, to obtain a view of the 
remaining pictures. The rest of the building is let off to 
tenants of the poorest class who air their rags on the sculp- 
tured window-sills and balconies. 

Sic transit gloria mundi! About a century ago this mas- 
sive Renaissance palace was the meeting-place of the fash- 
ionable world, for the Labia exercised a princely hospitality, 
and had a private theatre, where many operas were acted by 
marionettes and sung by good artists behind the scenes. 

On the same day, we gained admittance to the Palazzo 
Morosini, at Santo Stefano, one of the best preserved relics 
of olden Venice. It still belongs to the Morosini, and the 
present representative of the family allows it to be seen by 
special appointment. Landing at the water-door in a dark 
and narrow canal, you are received by ancient serving-men 
with shrunken faces and loosely hanging coats, and ushered 
straight into the Seventeenth Century. The chilly entrance 
hall is adorned with quaint oil sketches of the thirty-seven 
strongholds captured by Francesco Morosini in the Morea. 
The huge lanterns of his war-galley project from the end 
wall. There are full-length portraits of the conquering 
Doge and of many illustrious ancestors. The Maggiordomo 
appears and gravely leads you up-stairs into a long suite of 



BY SIDE CANALS 215 

saloons with gorgeous uncomfortable furniture, a large col- 
lection of pictures — good, bad and indifferent — quantities 
of rare old china of Eastern and native fabric, and innumer- 
able relics of the hero of the house, Doge Francesco, sur- 
named the " Peloponesiaco." There is his bust in bronze, 
with memorials of his prowess; and the resolute features are 
those of a leader of men. The one thing lacking to this 
typical Venetian dwelling is an outlook on to the Grand 
Canal. Nearly all the windows open upon the " Calle 
Stretta," or into mildewed courts ; and the only sunny corner, 
at the angle of Piazza Santo Stefano, is devoted to the ar- 
moury, filled with spoils of victory over the Turks. A 
forest of infidel banners and flags droop from the walls in 
heavy silken folds, amid a store of Pasha's tails, shields, tro- 
phies of arms and armour, guns and mortars, statues, busts 
and bas-reliefs. This fortunate general captured no less 
than 1,360 pieces of artillery, and evidently looted on a vast 
scale, inasmuch as the lion's share of his gains must have 
gone to the State. The sun streamed into this picturesque 
hall and through its wide casements. We looked on 
to the flower-filled terrace of Countess Morosini's private 
rooms. 

The gem of the picture gallery is Titian's portrait of Doge 
Grimiani: a marvellous painting of an astute old face, with 
piercing narrow eyes and seamed with countless wrinkles. 
His union with Morosina Morosini can hardly have been a 
love match, on the lady's part at all events. Beside this 
masterpiece hangs a good Sir Peter Lely, representing a 



21 6 VENICE 

bouncing blonde with frank blue eyes, supposed to be the 
portrait of Christina of Sweden. 

The collection naturally includes many scenes of Venetian 
life by the prolific Longhi ; they are very inferior to those in 
the possession of Mr. Rawdon Browne, but there are some 
female heads in pastel by the same master which are speci- 
mens of his best work. 

This home of the Morosini is almost the only notable 
Venetian palace still owned by the family for whom it was 
built, and no other has retained so rich a collection of art- 
treasures and relics. But even at burning mid-day it was 
cold — cold as the grave. Surely, only disembodied spirits 
could take their ease in those stiff and chilly saloons! We 
could imagine the long-deceased Doge and a select company 
of family ghosts gravely stalking through them by night, and 
trying to warm themselves by sipping hot coffee — for which 
the Doge had acquired a taste in the East — from the dainty 
cups so primly ranged on shelves during the day. That there 
are ghosts in Venice is known to everyone. Is not that fine 
grim-fronted palace at the turn of the canal, Palazzo Con- 
tarini delle Figure, perpetually changing hands, because no 
tenant can long endure its nighty horrors? The present 
owner has stripped it of its furniture in the hope of getting 
rid of the ghosts, but no one takes it, and its supernatural 
occupants now have it all to themselves. 



SOME CHURCHES OF VENICE 

HENRY PERL 

THE localities adjacent to the Rialto are those in 
which the larger mercantile affairs of the city are 
carried on. But although it is so especially the 
resort of business men, it must be understood that the entire 
neighbourhood is not lacking in objects of rich architectural 
interest. One of the most remarkable of these is the Church 
of the Madonna dei Miracoli, to which we may now direct 
our steps. In itself it is so complete, that, with respect to its 
purity alike of form and style, it may almost be said to stand 
alone. 

The church dates from the early Renaissance, and shows at 
the same time some slight tendency towards the mediaeval 
Byzantine style. The name of the original architect is un- 
certain, but the design was no doubt carried out faithfully 
in 1 48 1 under the supervision of Pietro Lombardo. Many 
of the paintings in the interior are of the highest value, but 
besides these the elaborate perforations and exquisite finish of 
the stonework demand a careful inspection. From an artistic 
point of view, the Church " dei Miracoli " must be reckoned 
amongst the most striking of the architectural works that ever 
were accomplished by the genius and energy of the Lom- 
bardi family. Its charm lies primarily in the perfect har- 
mony of its proportion, and this has been more completely 

217 



2i 8 VENICE 

revealed since the cultivated taste of modern days has insisted 
on the removal of the various altars, statues and other erec- 
tions, which had so encroached upon the area as to mar the 
purity of the proper outlines. As it is seen at present, it is 
the pearl of Venetian churches. 

Only a short distance from the Church dei Miracoli, we 
shall come upon another architectural gem of the days of old. 
This is the pointed arabesque archway that forms the en- 
trance to what is known as the " Corte della Monache." It is 
a happy combination of the Moorish with the Gothic style. 

Almost close by this is the " Campo Tiziano," in which is 
situated the house which Titian occupied from 153 1 to 1576. 
Going on straight ahead — or, as the Venetians say, sempre 
dritto — we soon arrive at the Piazza San Giovanni e Paolo, 
and there we find ourselves in full view both of the church 
of the same name and of the Municipal Hospital. Opposite 
is an equestrian statue to the memory of Bartolomeo Colleoni, 
who was a general of high renown in the time of the Re- 
public. Adjoining the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo is 
the Scuola di San Marco, remarkable for the singular reliefs 
in perspective of two lions which adorn it. This is now a 
hospital. 

Opposite San Giovanni e Paolo the road leads towards 
San Lorenzo, whence we proceed towards the Greek 
Church and the treasury of San Giorzio dei Greci. This is 
no doubt one of the most curious and striking quarters of 
Venice, being in a large degree made up of palatial residences, 
often beautiful in themselves, but almost all deserted. 




CHURCH OF S. ZACCARIA 



SOME CHURCHES OF VENICE 219 

The Church of San Lorenzo was originally a convent 
belonging to the Benedictine Order. Its history dates from 
about IOOO A. D., but the fabric itself was not built till 
J 595» when it was proceeded with under very favourable 
auspices. The singular circumstance is recorded that, at 
the very commencement of the undertaking, the workmen 
who were digging out the excavations for the foundation 
came upon two of the huge jars known as " zare," and which 
are still in use for holding water. These were found to be 
full up to the brim of gold coins. There was no doubt as to 
how the treasure had come there. The money had been the 
property of Angela Michiel, an abbess of the convent, who 
had thus buried her wealth for security after the murder of 
her brother, the Doge Vicenzo Michiel. 

As we are strolling about, we shall be sure to find ourselves 
before long opposite the Church of San Giorgio dei Greci, 
and we may well pause for a while to look at it. It was in 
1498 that the Greeks resident in Venice, some merchants, 
others fugitives from the Turks, formed a resolution to erect 
a Greek church, and obtained the requisite permission to 
carry out the design. 

One of the other passages close by is the Calle San An- 
tonino, and leads to the church after which it is named. This 
church was founded in the Ninth Century; but the ancient 
structure was removed and the edifice rebuilt in the Six- 
teenth Century, so that it now presents comparatively little 
of interest. 

On the right, the Fondamenta leads to another church — 



220 VENICE 

that of San Giorgio degli Schiavoni — where, besides a bas- 
relief by Pietro da Salo bearing date 155 1, there is preserved 
the noteworthy series, by Carpaccio, of scenes illustrating the 
lives of the saintly patrons of Dalmatia and Albania. We 
need only retrace our steps for a short way, leaving this little 
church of San Antonino, and we shall come to the Campo 
della Bragola, and nearly opposite to us we shall see the 
Palazzo Badoer, bearing one of the oldest names in Venetian 
history. The building is Fourteenth Century pointed work, 
and the walls still retain traces of fresco-paintings. The 
Campo altogether may be justly regarded as a type of 
mediaeval Venice. It contains a church dedicated to San 
Giovanni in Bragola. 

Leading from the Zattere are several ways into the labyrin- 
thine passages of Venice. We decide to turn into the Calle 
del Vento, and so reach the Fondamenta San Sebastiano, in 
which of course, we also find the Church of San Sebastiano. 
It was here the Paolo Veronese was buried, and the church 
can boast of possessing a goodly number of his most valued 
paintings. From the twenty-seventh to the thirty-first year 
of his age he was employed by the prior to adorn the walls 
of the building. It was very probably due to this commis- 
sion that Paolo Caliario came from Verona to Venice, where 
he depicted the city in its glory and gained for himself a 
world-wide reputation. Seen from the outside the church is 
quite unpretentious, but some of the pictures that embellish 
the interior are masterpieces by Veronese. Amongst them 
are the Martyrdom of S. Sebastian and the Martyrdom of 



SOME CHURCHES OF VENICE 221 

SS. Mark and Marcellinus. One of the altar-pieces is a 
powerful picture by Titian, and a circumstance that gives it 
an exceptional interest is that it was painted when the artist 
was in his eighty-sixth year. The mortal remains of Paolo 
Veronese lie just below a bust of him, and a Latin inscription 
certifies the fact. 

From this church we pass through a little piazza that has 
almost a rural character, and brings us to the Church of San 
Angelo Raffaelle, which is another monument of art. The 
sculptured fountain in the middle of the Campo San Raf- 
faelle is by Marco Arian, of the date of 1349, and is one of 
the only two authenticated works by him in Venice. Hardly 
any church enjoys a greater popularity than San Angelo, and 
the piazza is from time to time bright with the festival pro- 
cessions crossing it. The ceremonial observed with the 
keenest zest, and therefore the most attractive, takes place on 
St. John the Baptist's Day, which falls on the 24th of June. 
A considerable number of little children from two to four 
years of age are dressed up in lamb-skins, lavishly adorned 
with flowers, and each provided with a candle that, like 
themselves, is gay with blossoms and coloured ribbons. Many 
of them wear dazzling crowns upon their heads, and per- 
sonate the infant Baptist. In this way they form a leading 
feature in the procession, which is certainly very imposing. 

The neighbourhood round San Raffaelle and near S. 
Nicolo dei Mendicanti is one of the poorest, and at the same 
time one of the most characteristic, in Venice. The little 
church of S. Nicolo has not been without its significance in 



222 VENICE 

the history of the lagoons, inasmuch as it gave the name of the 
" Nicolotti " to the residents within its parochial bounds, 
the sworn foes of the Castellani, and the eager partakers in 
the Herculean sports there described. 

At this end of the city more than anywhere else we realise 
that Venice is actually an island traversed by navigable canals 
which the great and mighty have at intervals adorned with 
buildings, most of them ranking as works of art. 

Here, as so often happens, we find as we go along either 
from San Sebastiano, or San Raffaelle that the monotony of 
the long and cleanly-kept Fondamenta is relieved by some 
small piazza. On one of these stands a church of high 
repute known as"I Carmini," whence both the Campo and 
the adjacent bridge have derived their name. The popular- 
ity that the church enjoys is exceptionally great, and is to be 
largely, if not entirely, attributed to the circumstance of its 
being dedicated to the Madonna del Carmelo, who is gen- 
erally supposed to be identical with the Madonna di Loretto. 
The yearly festival of the Madonna, which is held in the 
month of July, is observed with especial honour, and is an 
occasion when the Patriarch of Venice, generally attends and 
himself celebrates High Mass. 

From the Marittima we cross a bridge and come upon a 
pretty piazza that is almost Dutch in its aspect; this is the 
Campo Sant' Andrea, the church having the same name and 
facing the Canal di Marittima. It is only on Sundays and 
festivals that this church is open for service, and it is at- 
tended almost exclusively by sailors. 



SOME CHURCHES OF VENICE 223 

The Frari Church is the Pantheon of Venice. For even 
the most cursory and superficial inspection of it a quiet un- 
interrupted hour is required. Not only does it contain the 
monuments of many eminent men who are buried here, but 
there are numerous portraits and pictures that must detain 
attention. First we must name the Mausoleums of Pesaro 
and Titian, and what, perhaps, in an artistic sense will be 
accounted more important still, the Monument to Canova. 



ALL SOULS' DAY 

HORATIO F. BROWN 

THE Italians keep their Lemuria or festival for the 
dead, not in May, as their Roman ancestors did, 
but in November. The 2nd of November, All 
Souls' Day, and its octave are more generally observed than 
any other of the minor holy days in the Roman calendar. 
No festival could so unite all classes of people as this, on 
which each family pays the tribute of memory to its lost ones, 
and acknowledges the power of that great Democrat, Death. 
Every day throughout the octave, the churches of Venice 
recite a mass for the souls of those who are gone and implore 
for them the intercession of All Saints, whose festival comes 
immediately before the day of the dead. In the evening 
another service is held, a little after sundown. There is a 
sermon ; and then begins the lighting of candles all through 
the church, before each altar and round the catafalque in the 
centre. It is upon the vigil of All Souls, the " notte dei 
Morti " as it is called, and at the church of the Gesuati, upon 
the Zattere, that the greatest illumination takes place. The 
Gesuati is that late Palladian church, built of Istrian stone, 
almost opposite the nobler fagade of the Redentore, and 
more formally known as Santa Maria del Rosario. The 
church is called the Gesuati because hard by — but long before 
the foundation of this present building, which dates from the 

224 




IL SAXTISSIMO REDEXTORE 



ALL SOULS' DAY 225 

last century only — the company of the Blessed John Colom- 
bini, which was called the Gesuati, first established itself in 
the year 1392. Among the other pious duties of the brother- 
hood was that of supplying and carrying the torches at 
funerals, and hence it comes that the Gesuati makes this dis- 
play of light every 2nd of November. The order of the 
Blessed John was suppressed in the year 1668; but the 
Dominicans who succeeded the Gesuati in the possession of 
their monastery and church continue the custom of the 
candles. 

Outside, over the main door of the church is a large black- 
board, and, in white letters, an invitation to all good 
Christians to pray for the souls of the departed. Round this 
table hangs a wreath of laurel leaves, twined on a black and 
white ribbon. Every other door of the church has a similar 
garland above it. The sun is setting in a cold and cloudless 
sky, serene and almost hard. In the zenith the colour is 
deep blue, but towards the west a thin film of gold is spread 
where the sun is sinking. The wind comes fine and search- 
ing, as it so often does on an autumn evening. The broad 
and rippled waters of the Giudecca Canal seem as hard as the 
sky they reflect. 

Inside the church, through the open door where the women 
troop, pulling their shawls up over their heads as they enter, 
all is dark and gloomy, every column, pilaster, and arch- 
itrave draped in black cloth with silver fringes ; and wreaths 
of laurel are twined round each pillar's base. The high 
altar is hidden by a towering cenotaph, raised in the middle 



226 VENICE 

of the nave ; against its blackness the thin white stripes of the 
tapers that surround it stand out clear. The people, chiefly 
women and boys, scuffle and whisper subduedly as they kneel 
in rows. The black-walled, black-roofed church seems to 
enclose and compress them as if in some vast and lugubrious 
tomb; and their mutterings sound like the gibbering of 
ghosts. The sermon begins; a voice alone, full of inflexion, 
passion, forcible cadences, speaking out of the darkness. 
Though the preacher is invisible, the mind unconsciously and 
perforce pictures the action that must accompany this strong 
Italian rhetoric. The voice holds the church; and there is 
silence in the congregation except for the dull thud of the 
padded doors as some new-comers arrive. The sermon is 
not long; only a few rapid passages, and then comes the 
close. The shuffling and whispering are resumed; and the 
sacristans begin to light the candles. Through the darkness 
the little yellow tips of fire move noiselessly, touching the tall 
wax tapers before each altar, and down the nave, and round 
the cenotaph in the centre. Presently the church is faintly 
illuminated by these warm yellow stars, that waver to and 
fro in the gloom, but do not overcome it. There is a short 
hush of silent prayer ; then the congregation rises and shuffles 
out down the steps of the church on to the broad pavement of 
the Zattere. 

The sun has set, the wind died away; the air is mild and 
clear ; the sky in the west is mellowed to a wonderful enamel 
of molten blue and green and daffodil; and no stars are 
shining yet. The crowd disappears rapidly; the boys rush 



ALL SOULS' DAY 227 

off with shouts ; the men follow in twos or threes with long 
swinging step and conscious manly movement; the women 
linked arm in arm, go clattering down the narrow street on 
their noisy pattens. 

On All Souls' Day it is the custom to visit the graves of 
relations and friends in that grim cemetery of San Michele, 
whose high brick wall you pass on the way to Aiurano or 
Torcello. The church itself is a lovely specimen of Lom- 
bardi work with delicate bas-reliefs in Istrian stone upon the 
little pentagonal Cappella Emiliana adjoining it. But there 
is something terrible and sinister in the cemetery itself, where 
the dead lie buried in the ooze of the lagoon-island. On this 
day the Venetians earn 7 wreaths to lay on the graves. The 
wealthier have garlands made of real flowers, but, for the 
most part, these wreaths are twined out of Venetian beads — 
red and blue, Madonna's colours, for the women; or black 
and white for the men, who have no universal patron in the 
heavens. 

There is one old custom connected with this festival of the 
dead which still survives in Venice, and recalls a Latin, or 
even an earlier superstition. The pious man in Ovid's 
" Fasti " rises at midnight to fling black beans behind his 
shoulder. Nine times he flung his beans, and then the ghost 
was laid. The Venetian does not fling away his beans; he 
eats them. In Venice this custom of eating beans through 
the octave of All Souls' is extremely ancient. The monks of 
every cloister in the city used to make a gratuitous distribution 
of beans on All Souls' Day to any of the poor who chose to 



228 VENICE 

come for them. A huge caldron was placed in the middle of 
the courtyard and the food ladled out to the crowd. The 
gondoliers did not come with the rest, but had their portion 
sent down to them at their ferries. This grace was granted 
to them in consideration of the fact that all the year round 
they rowed the brothers across the canals for nothing. In- 
deed, though the custom is almost extinct, they still do so; 
and you may sometimes see a brown-cowled friar crossing a 
ferry with no other payment than a pinch of snuff or a bene- 
diction. As the Venetians grew more wealthy true beans 
became distasteful to the palates of the luxurious, who were 
yet unwilling to break through the custom of eating them on 
All Souls' Day. The pastry cooks saw their opportunity, 
and invented a small round puff, coloured blue or red or yel- 
low, and hollow inside; these they called fave, or beans; 
and these are to be seen at this time of the year in all the 
bakers' windows. If a man should happen to be courting at 
this season it is customary for him to make a present of a 
boxful of these fave to his lady. But the pious mind has 
never been quite at ease under the gastronomic deception; 
and so, though you may hate beans and keep your hands from 
them as scrupulously as any pupil of Pythagoras, — should 
your cook chance to be a good Catholic you will assuredly, 
about the month of November, have beans set before you for 
dinner in Venice. 



CANALS, WELLS AND SQUARES 

JULIA CART WRIGHT 

IT would be impossible to conceive any street in the 
world more stately or more full of exquisite and varied 
loveliness than this of the Grand Canal as it was in the 
days of Venetian greatness. Even to-day we feel, in Mr. 
Ruskin's words, how utterly impossible it is for any man 
" unless on terms of work like Albert Diirer's to express ad- 
equately the mere contents of architectural beauty in any 
general view on the Grand Canal." Its beautiful sweep and 
fascinating surroundings always attract artists who, like Mr. 
Ruskin himself, can overcome the difficulties of any subject 
by the force of his love, as he has sufficiently proved in his 
own Venetian drawings. But it is not only on the Canalazzo 
that we must seek for the examples of the architectural 
wealth in which Venice abounds. Some of the finest palaces, 
as well as of some of the choicest specimens of Lombardi and 
Sansovino's art, are to be found in narrow bye-canals or in 
obscure campi in the less visited quarters. 

Sometimes, as in the little canals of St. Bernado or the 
Campo S. Stefano, you have four or five palaces with richly 
worked doorways and windows close together ; elsewhere you 
come upon a Gothic portal upon which the Massegne or the 
Buoni have lavished all the luxuriance of their wonderful 
invention. The beautiful gabled relief of Madonnas and 
saints on the Bridge of Paradise will be familiar to most of us, 

229 



230 VENICE 

and there is a door with an angel raising his hand in blessing 
out near S. Margherita that is worth remembering. Some of 
the older houses, where fragments of Byzantine work remain, 
have crosses let in between the windows or emblems of the 
four Evangelists in the spandrils of the arches. A wall in the 
little Campiello S. Angaran still retains the medallion of a 
Byzantine Caesar of the Ninth Century, and on the Corte 
Sabbionera, close to the favourite Teatro Malibran, is a 
quaint horseshoe arch, patterned over with plants and animals, 
curious by reason of its Arabic form, and still more interest- 
ing as having belonged to the house in which Marco Polo 
was born. 

It is no uncommon thing to stumble upon a row of Byzan- 
tine windows in a dilapidated palace inhabited by five or six 
of the poorest families, and even to see clothes hung out to 
dry on the parapet of a balcony ornamented with delicate 
flower-work, cornices and sculptured dragons or birds. A 
few years ago there was a balcony on a palace in a narrow 
lane somewhere near the Shrine of the Seave, traditionally 
ascribed to Sansovino, and adorned with the most exquisite 
heads of fauns and satyrs, with a character and expression of 
its own. Let no one seek to find it there, for, like so many 
other rare things in Venice, it has vanished; and the best 
hope we can cherish is that it may be one of those rescued 
from destruction by the care of Mr. J. C. Robinson, and 
preserved at South Kensingston or Birmingham. 

Many of the dark and dirty courtyards at the back of 
these old palaces are well worth visiting for the sake of the 




S. MARIA DELLA MISERICORDA : DOCK 



CANALS, WELLS, SQUARES 231 

ancient staircases and wells they contain. Some of the stair- 
cases are open to the sky, and are supported by Gothic arches 
and twisted pillars, others are in the style of the late Renais- 
sance, ornamented with white marble statues that still throw 
long lines of light into the water below. Strangers are sure 
to be shown the lovely spiral staircases of Palazzo Minelli, 
enclosed in a turret, in the dark little Corte del Maltese, 
which in form so closely resembles the Tower of Pisa, and 
that other scarcely less picturesque at the corner of the house 
where Goldoni was born. 

No less interesting are the old wells, bocche and cinte di 
pozzij which you find in every campo and in almost every 
courtyard of Venice. Next to the windows, balconies, door- 
ways, and tombs, these were the most favourite subjects on 
which the Venetian sculptors lavished their skill, and those 
still remaining are shaped and adorned with infinite variety. 
They are so beautiful in themselves, and so closely connected 
with the history of Venice, that they have always seemed to 
me deserving of greater attention than has been usually paid 
them. 

From the earliest times the supply of water received the 
especial attention of the State, and there are said to be no 
less than two thousand public cisterns in Venice at the present 
time. In the year 1 1 30 the Paduans, who were then at war 
with Venice, tried to dam up the Brenta, and thus cut off the 
chief water-supply of Venice. The alarm which this step 
excited led to the opening of a number of new wells in the 
city, and several of those which still exist date back to that 



232 VENICE 

period. Some are even older, and probably belong to the 
Tenth and Eleventh Centuries. These are generally made 
of Greek marble, while later ones are of the white Istrian 
stone so common in Venice, or else of red Verona marble. A 
complete study of these wells would include the whole history 
of Venetian sculpture, which we find reflected in all its dif- 
ferent phases in the specimens to be found at Venice and its 
neighbouring islands. At Torcello and Murano and in 
some parts of Venice we may still see wells of Byzantine date, 
carved with Greek crosses and stars and peacocks, with inter- 
laced circles and other patterns delicately worked in the flat 
relief common in pavements and tombs of this epoch in 
Ravenna. Next we have the Gothic wells of which splendid 
specimens are to be seen in the Corte Bressana, amongst other 
places. The earlier of these are shaped like the huge capital 
of a pillar, and are severe and simple in design, while others 
are enriched with all the luxuriant foliage and variety of 
heads, lions, griffins and birds, in which the later Venetian 
sculptors delighted. Finally, there are the wells which be- 
long, by their form and decoration, to the Sixteenth and 
Seventeenth Centuries. The more elaborate specimens of 
this period are profusely adorned with flowers and leaves, 
medallions, rosettes, bead and scroll-work — in short, with 
every kind of Renaissance ornament. The finest examples 
of this numerous and well-preserved class are the octagonal 
bronze wells in the court of the Ducal Palace, designed after 
Vittoria's style by Alberghetti of Ferrara and Niccolo de 
Conti in the middle of the Sixteenth Century 



CANALS, WELLS, SQUARES 233 

It would be unjust to the dry land if we did not acknowl- 
edge the picturesqueness of the calle where the high roofs 
shut out all but the narrowest strip of blue sky, and where 
swinging shutters and jutting balconies and window-sills with 
crimson and yellow stuffs hanging over them, and little 
shrines of Virgin and saints, each with their lamp burning, 
and shops and wares and laces are crowded together in the 
most inextricable confusion. 

Out of these crooked and bewildering streets, with their 
bright medley of form and colour, we emerge on to the 
campi, or squares, in front of the churches, to which they 
were originally attached as burial-grounds. Each of these 
squares is now a little centre of life, and has its farmacia and 
grocery and fruiterer's shop, perhaps a palazzo with the 
upper stories to let, sometimes a tree or two swaying leafy 
boughs against the balconies. Each has its well generally 
raised on steps, round which the gossips of the place collect 
and where you may glean many a characteristic and amusing 
incident of Venetian life. Every morning at eight o'clock 
the iron lid which closes its mouth is unlocked, and then there 
is a clanking of heels on the stone pavement and a brisk 
chattering of tongues, as the water-carriers, stout-built pea- 
sant maidens from Friuli, each wearing the same high- 
crowned hat and short skirts, come to fill their copper 
buckets at the well. Many of the campi in front of the 
well-known churches have furnished subjects to our painters, 
such as the square in front of San Giovanni e Paolo, the 
burial-place of the Doges, which is further adorned by the 



234 VENICE 

presence of Colleoni's glorious statue and that masterpiece of 
the Lombard's art, the Scuola di San Marco. Another 
favourite bit is the little Campiello di San Rocco with the 
back of the church of the Frari towering over the roofs and 
some trefoil windows in a house on the right which formed 
the subject of one of Prout's pictures. 

Less familiar, but quite as well worth knowing, is the still 
grassy square in front of the remote church of the Madonna 
dell' Orto, where the tall Gothic windows and traceries of 
red and white marble with which Bartolommeo Buoni 
adorned that fair shrine look down on the sunny turf. This 
is the very edge of the lagoon. A few steps further on you 
have a splendid view over the wide expanse from the creek 
or Sacca della Misericorda. 



SUMMER IN VENICE 

LINDA VILLARI 

VENICE in Summer! To most ears the words 
seems synonymous with much heat, bad odours, 
and mosquitoes innumerable. These are there, it 
is true, yet may all be escaped. Venice is the one city of 
Italy where summer days need not be spent in darkened rooms, 
where heat may be defied, and evening glories and the cool 
salt breath of the lagoon bring delights far outweighing the 
chance discomfort of fervid noons. But to enjoy your sum- 
mer is essential to live in private lodgings. Then, and then 
only, you feel the full charm of Venetian magic. No tourist- 
talk breaks the spell, no dinner-bell curtails your study of sea 
and sky, and every door can be left open to invite full 
draughts of air. 

Instead of the irksome glare and chatter of a crowded 
table d'hote j you have the choice of quiet meals in your own 
dim dining-room, of frugal repasts beneath the vines of the 
artist-haunted restaurant, on the Zattere beside the Giudecca 
Canal, or of set dinners at the Lido Baths, where courses of 
changing effects on waves and sky, and distant strip of tree- 
fringed coast feast your eyes better than the too-dilatory dishes 
nourish your body. 

As for the dreaded mosquitoes, their numbers are few until 
the hungry swallows have flown, and they are too well en- 

235 



236 VENICE 

gaged on fresh English blood in the hotels near the Salute and 
along the Riva to make any raids on private houses. 

The ideal Venetian lodging should be, of course, in some 
palace of historic name, with carven balconies, painted arches, 
and lofty echoing halls. Such lodgings, however, are seldom 
to be found, and you usually have to content yourself with 
more plebeian surroundings, and satisfy your soul with local 
colour of a humbler sort. 

Fate led us to San Samuele, and gave us a modest dwelling, 
shrinking back on a little campo on the Grand Canal, placed 
between Ca'Malipiero and Ca'Grassi, opposite the massive 
Rezzonico Palace, for which even Renaissance-hating Mr. 
Ruskin can find no word of blame. Thus we commanded a 
space of the great highway, and had a perfect Venetian view 
across the water, down winding Rio San Barnaba, with its 
bridge and brown tower, tall grey campanile, irregular patches 
of roof, and fan-shaped chimneys. The vine-trellis, shading 
our traghetto, or gondola-stand, was a pleasant object in the 
foreground. There was a sculptured well in the Campo 
beside us, and the belfry of St. Samuel was built into our 
house, and bounded our scrap of roof-terrace to the rear. 
Viewed by moonlight from the canal, it seemed a fit scene 
for operatic love and crime. 

Knowing that every inch of Venetian ground, every street 
and square and bridge, every Campo and Rio and Calle, 
Salizzada and Fondamenta, has some historic associations to 
compare with those of the arched and pillared palaces that 
are better known to fame, we made haste to inquire into the 



SUMMER IN VENICE 237 

past of our own humble campo, and the humbler network of 
devious lanes in its rear. Putting aside one or two ugly tales 
of crime, the following were all the particulars we were able 
to glean: 

The Church of San Samuele, only open for early morning 
service, pending repairs, dates from the beginning of the 
Eleventh Century; but, having been twice partly destroyed 
by fire, was almost entirely rebuilt in the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury, and our noisy belfry is probably all that remains of the 
original structure. The church contains no works of art 
worthy of mention, but the parish is rich in artistic memories. 

Titian once possessed a studio hard by in the house of 
the architect Bartolommeo Buono. The sculptors Giulio, 
Tullio and Antonio Lombardo lived at San Samuele, and it 
was the birthplace of Madesta da Pozzo, a learned lady of 
much repute in the Sixteenth Century. Paolo Veronese 
spent his last years in the Casa Zecchini, and died there in 
1588 of a fever caught by taking part in a grand Easter pro- 
cession. His sons and grandsons, painters all, continued to 
live there ; and in their days the house was enriched by many 
of the elder Caliari's works. Girolamo Campagna, too, had 
once plied his chisel and fused his bronze in the same build- 
ing. Several artists of lesser note, like Giralomo Pilotti, the 
follower of Palma Vecchio, Ridolfi, the painter and biog- 
rapher of painters, and Pietro Literi, whose profitable brush 
enabled him to build himself the palace now known as Casa 
Morolin, also lived within sound of our bells. Here at San 
Samuele, the notorious adventurer, Giacomo Casannova, 



238 VENICE 

first opened his audacious eyes, and may have passed his early 
years in squabbling on the campo with other ragamuffins, 
hooking gondolas for a copper coin, and diving in the canal 
on summer nights, much after the manner of the Nineteenth 
Century imps, whose shrill voices made a frequent treble to 
the deeper tones of our gondoliers, and here, in later and 
comparatively respectable days, when employed as a spy of 
the Inquisition, he may perhaps have penned the famous report 
in which he denounced the possession of many impious and 
prohibited works. The list is curious, and includes the 
works of Voltaire and Rousseau, the Esprit of Helvetius, 
the Belisarius of Marmontel, sundry productions of Crebillon 
and Diderot, the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius, Boling- 
broke's Examination, the writings of Machiavelli, Spinoza, 
etc. The pious criticisms of the white-washed rogue were 
somewhat sweeping in their range. His white-wash, how- 
ever, had rubbed off by the time he composed his scandalous 
memoires and miraculous escapes from the Piombi, in the 
Bohemian castle of his last patron. 

Being flanked and faced by patrician abodes, our modest 
campo has had its share of the festive shows for which 
Venice has at all times been celebrated; but its noblest pa- 
geant must have been that of the wedding of Lucrezia Con- 
tarini and Jacopo, son of the Doge Francesco Foscari, on 
Sunday, the 29th of January, 1441. Then a crowd of 
patrician guests in festal attire, and mounted on gaily capari- 
soned steeds, rode to the campo from all quarters of the 
town, and crossed the canal to San Barnaba on a bridge of 



SUMMER IN VENICE 239 

boats erected for the occasion. The Serenissimo went in per- 
son to meet the bride at High Mass in that brown-towered 
church; and, later an open-air sermon was preached on the 
campo without to a great concourse of hearers, tanti zentt 
lomeni e puovola che no se podeva andar in alcun luogo — 
so many nobles and townsfolk that there was no room to stir. 
And in the evening, the Bucintoro brought a hundred and 
fifty noble dames to lead the bride, escorted by a fleet of skiffs 
and gondolas to her new home in the Ducal Palace, where 
the wedding festivities were prolonged far into the night. 
Fortunately, no astrologer seems to have dimmed the bright- 
ness of the day by foretelling how soon this joy was to be 
turned into mourning; the gay young bridegroom made the 
victim of relentless persecution, and his splendid father 
stripped of his state, and left to die of sheer misery in his 
family palace at the turn of the Canal! Foscari's successor, 
Doge Malipiero, also abode at San Samuele, and the sculp- 
tured archway of his palace in the Salizzada frames a dainty 
garden scene with fountain and statues in the background. 

Never live near a traghettOj say old Venetians: and we 
might add, never beside a well or in front of a belfry. But 
although at the cost of quiet, our position had undoubted ad- 
vantages for insight into local manners and customs. Daily 
at 5 A. M. St. Samuel's iron voice reminded us that we were in 
Venice, its vibrations shaking us in our beds. An hour later, 
the clang of copper pails, clinking of chains and shrill clatter 
of housewives' tongues announced the opening of the well. 
Soon the ringers were again at work in our belfry, the pierc- 



240 VENICE 

ing whistles of the " tram " steamers, most disturbing of 
modern utilities, began to resound from the canal, and the 
every day business of Venice was fairly begun. 

As for the gondoliers of our traghetto, they were never 
quiet : all hours seemed alike to them. Like the poet's hack- 
neyed brook, they too ran on forever. They seldom ceased 
quarrelling with one another excepting to wage a fiercer war 
of words with their brethren of the opposite stand. Hail- 
storms of invective were always flying back and forth across 
the water. The only truce to the undying feud was when 
both sides joined in volleys of bad language against their 
common foes, the penny steamers that have so wofully dimin- 
ished their gains. One day, one of these steamers chanced to 
foul the nearest landing-stage, and instantly the air was rent 
by the derisive howls of all the gondoliers within sight. 

But if our noisy crew had little work, neither did they take 
much repose. Towards 1 1 p. M. there would be a promising 
lull in their disputes: they would indulge in prolonged and 
prodigious yawns. Custom was growing scarce, there were 
fewer footsteps on the pavement, fewer cries of " Poppi " — 
the signal for hailing a gondola to ferry you over the canal — 
came to summon them to their oars. Surely they would 
slumber at last, and allow silence to reign in our campo! 
Not at all ! Within half an hour they were livelier than ever 
— all fatigue had evaporated in yawns, and they had so much 
spare energy that they were driven to vent it in sudden bursts 
of stentorian song, and thus excite the emulation of the San 
Barnaba rivals. Luckily the air of Venice is soothing to new- 



SUMMER IN VENICE 241 

comers, so we learnt the art of sleeping through the din, and 
it was difficult to wake at any hour without hearing it going 
on almost as briskly as before. The only tranquil time was 
just towards daybreak. A Venetian dawn in July is well 
worth the cost of a sleepless night, and its clear-eyed frank- 
ness as beautiful in its way as the mysterious fantasies played 
by moonlight on walls and water. Naturally here at San 
Samuele, midway up the Grand Canal, you miss the splendour 
of sunrise on the sea to be enjoyed from the Riva; but lack 
of horizon is almost balanced by the added suggestiveness of 
effects within the narrower range of vision. For instance, 
this is what we saw during the small hours of a July morn- 
ing. First, the soft twilight that had never been gloom at 
any period of the brief night, gradually paled to a faint white- 
ness in which the slender, grey, angel-topped campanile down 
our favourite opening by the Rezzonico walls seemed to lose 
all substance and become a cloud structure — a mere film 
instead of a pile of stones. The sturdy brown tower of San 
Barnaba wore a deeper, warmer tint as the light grew and 
the stars died out. A few tiny cloudlets began to dapple the 
clear zenith, slowly expanded and were slowly suffused 
by a delicate flush that presently deepened to a vivid rose, 
streaked with grey and backed by darker wool-packs. By 
this time the swallows were on the wing, circling swiftly 
in the air, and emitting their sharp sweet note. Pigeons, 
too, were flitting down from cornice and house top, with 
much velvety flutter and melodious whirr. Sparrows, pert 
and well-plumed, darted this way and that, and hopped 



242 VENICE 

lightly about the deserted pavement. One or two boats 
appeared on the canal: the eyes of Venice were begin- 
ning to open for the day. Soon a great barge lumbers past 
laden with fresh water from the mainland. It is so full 
that a bare few inches of woodwork save the " sweet water " 
within from mingling with the brakish element without. 
How unkempt and sleepy-eyed are the red-capped bargees so 
patiently trudging the length of their craft with shoulders 
hard-pressed to their punting poles. 

Theirs is no easy trade! With favourable wind and tide 
they have had at least an eight hours' sail! With wind and 
tide against them, it is sometimes a two days' journey. Yet 
this cargo of water only brings them five francs. Having 
reached its destination, the barge is quickly tackled by a busy 
little engine, which, with much noise and fuss, distributes its 
contents into smaller boats, that in their turn fill the public 
wells by means of far-reaching hose. 

The sky was still bright with the freshness of early morn, 
there were blue spaces still mottled with rose, but the tenderly 
blushing cloudlets had gone, just as the joyous smiles of in- 
fancy vanish in the gravity of manhood. Storm clouds were 
now thickening over the lagoon to the south, and although 
unseen from our San Samuele windows, they had sent their 
messengers before them. Dark brownish masses began to en- 
croach on the azure overhead, and this was already touched 
here and there by the tiny brush-strokes of the wind. Morn- 
ing was full-blown now, and a cool breeze at last brought 
sleep to nerve us for the coming heat of the day. 



NIGHT IN VENICE 

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 

NIGHT in Venice! Night is nowhere else so 
wonderful, unless it be in winter among the high 
Alps. But the nights of Venice and the nights of 
the mountains are too different in kind to be compared. 

There is the ever-recurring miracle of the full moon rising 
before day is dead, behind San Giorgio, spreading a path of 
gold on the lagoon which black boats traverse with the glow- 
worm lamp upon their prow ; ascending the cloudless sky and 
silvering the domes of the Salute; pouring vitreous sheen 
upon the red lights of the Piazzetta; flooding the Grand 
Canal, and lifting the Rialto higher in ethereal whiteness; 
piercing but penetrating not the murky labyrinth of rio linked 
with rio, through which we wind in light and shadow, to 
reach once more the level glories, and the luminous expanse 
of heaven beyond the Misericord ia. 

This is the melodrama of Venetian moonlight; and if a 
single impression of the night has to be retained from one 
visit to Venice, those are fortunate who chance upon a full 
moon of fair weather. Yet I know not whether some quieter 
and soberer effects are not more thrilling. To-night, for 
example, the waning moon will rise late through veils of 
sirocco. Over the bridges of San Cristoforo and San Gre- 
gorio, through the deserted Calle di Mezzo, my friend and 

243 



244 VENICE 

I walk in darkness, pass the marble basements of the Salute, 
and push our way along its Riva to the point of the Dogana. 
We are at sea alone, between the Canalozzo and the Giu- 
decca. A moist wind ruffles the water and cools our fore- 
heads. It is so dark that we can only see San Giorgio by the 
light reflected on it from the Piazzetta. The same light 
climbs the Campanile of St. Mark, and shows the golden 
angel in a mystery of gloom. The only noise that reaches 
us is a confused hum from the Piazza. Sitting and musing 
there, the blackness of the water whispers in our ears a tale 
of death. And now T we hear a plash of oars, and gliding 
through the darkness comes a single boat. One man leaps 
upon the landing-place without a word and disappears. 
There is another wrapped in a military cloak asleep. I see 
his face beneath me, pale and quiet. The barcaruolo turns 
the point in silence. From the darkness they came ; into the 
darkness they have gone. It is only an ordinary incident of 
coast-guard service. But the spirit of the night has made a 
poem of it. 

Even tempestuous and rainy weather, though melancholy 
enough, is never sordid here. There is no noise from car- 
riage traffic, and the sea-wind preserves the purity and trans- 
parency of the atmosphere. It had been raining all day, but 
at evening came a partial clearing. I went down to the 
Molo, where the large reach of the lagoon was all moon- 
silvered, and San Giorgio Maggiore dark against the bluish 
sky, and Santa Maria della Salute domed with moon- 
irradiated pearl, and the wet slabs of the Riva shimmering in 



NIGHT IN VENICE 245 

moonlight, the whole misty sky, with its clouds and stellar 
spaces, drenched in moonlight, nothing but moonlight sen- 
sible except the tawny flare of gas-lamps and the orange 
lights of gondolas afloat upon the waters. On such a night 
the very spirit of Venice is abroad. We feel why she is 
called Bride of the Sea. 

Take yet another night. There had been a representation 
of Verdi's Forza del Destino at the Teatro Malibran. After 
midnight we walked homeward through the Merceria, 
crossed the Piazza, and dived into the narrow calle which 
leads to the traghetto of the Salute. It was a warm, moist, 
starless night, and there seemed no air to breathe in those 
narrow alleys. The gondolier was half asleep. Eustace 
called him as we jumped into his boat, and rang our soldi on 
the gunwale. Then he arose and turned the ferro round, 
and stood across towards the Salute. Silently, insensibly, 
from the oppression of confinement in the airless streets to the 
liberty and immensity of the water and the night we passed. 
It was but two minutes ere we touched the shore and said 
good-night, and went our way and left the ferryman. But 
in that brief passage he had opened our souls to everlasting 
things, — the freshness, and the darkness, and the kindness of 
the brooding, all-enfolding night above the sea. 



THE ARSENAL 

CHARLES YRIARTE 

THE Arsenal of Venice, so strong and formidable 
considering the date of its construction, was the 
natural outgrowth to that spirit of commerce and 
genius for barter. It was also a powerful auxiliary to the 
ambition of the Venetians; they had wished to make their 
sovereignty over the Adriatic sure; they were therefore 
bound to be ready at any moment to defend their pretensions, 
by sending against those who would dispute their claim a fleet 
strong enough to compensate for the weakness of their claim. 

The Sieur de Saint-Didier, author of La Ville et la Re- 
publique of Venice, and an eye-witness of all that he relates, 
says that the arsenal gives the best idea of the power of 
Venice, and that it is the admiration of all strangers and 
" the foundation of the whole power of the State." 

The Turks-, who were the constant and powerful enemies 
of the Republic and who often brought her within an ace of 
destruction, always looked with envious eyes upon this estab- 
lishment then unrivalled throughout the world; and when 
the Grand Viziers received the Venetian ambassadors, they 
never tired of asking for details regarding its organisation, 
resources and strength. Visitors to Venice would hurry to the 
arsenal to see its wonderful plan and colossal development; 
it embodied the moral strength of Venice, the symbol of her 

246 



THE ARSENAL 247 

power, the source of her wealth; here you could lay your 
finger on the tremendous springs of her military machinery 
and realise the inexhaustible resources of a nation which had 
given all its energies to the construction and maintenance of a 
fleet greatly disproportionate to its territory, and whose su- 
premacy over the waters embraced all the coasts of the 
Archipelago. 

Of all modern nations the Venetians were the first to build 
strong vessels ; even as early as the time of the Crusades, they 
undertook the transportation of French armies ; and they had 
not merely to carry the troops but to provide escort and 
defend them at need. The heavy galleys had seventy-five 
feet of keel and the light ones were a hundred and thirty- 
five feet long; the cogues, light vessels especially used for 
transport service, could carry as many as a thousand men-at- 
arms with their stores; the galeasses, which were rowed like 
galleys, had cannon-proof prows and were armed with fifty 
pieces of artillery of the highest known calibre; sixteen 
hundred soldiers could easily fight on board one of them. 
When such masses appeared on the scene of battle, their at- 
tack was irresistible and gained the victory. For more than 
a century, rival nations were unable to procure means of 
action powerful enough to oppose these Venetian warships; 
but, naturally enough, the Genoese, who were great 
navigators and, like the Spaniards and Turks, redoubtable 
enemies, endeavoured, in their turn, to arm ships powerful 
enough to sustain a contest and at last they succeeded. 
Thenceforward there was a continual development of 



248 VENICE 

methods of warfare, successive enlargements of the arsenal, 
and great improvements resulted from the stimulus arising 
from the rivalry of other nations. The Venetians remained 
the superiors in one thing, — their artillery, and in every 
naval battle that they won, it is said that the fate of the day 
was due to the excellent marksmanship of the Venetian gun- 
ners. All their ships, even the lightest of them, were armed 
with cannon; the little galleys, so alert and useful in attack 
and which could enter the creeks of the bay, could also resist 
the shocks of the enemy, thanks to the fifteen pieces of artil- 
lery with which they were armed. 

At first the arsenal was only a dockyard for the construc- 
tion of merchant ships and galleys ; it stood on the site of the 
ancient island Gemole or Gemelle (twins), in the eastern 
part of the town ; the place was open for a long time before 
it was enclosed by walls and organised as a national establish- 
ment. Until then dockyards were improvised, wherever 
space could be found and wherever they were required ; thus 
in 1 104 and 1298, fifteen large galleys were put on the 
stocks, in the place where the Royal Gardens now are, on the 
very edge of the water. During the Thirteenth Century, the 
arsenal was firmly established and the Senate devoted all its 
energies to enlarging it ; neighbouring grounds were bought, 
new docks were dug, and dry-docks and repairing and build- 
ing docks were added whose names show that they were an- 
nexed by degrees. Many a time the ruin of the arsenal was 
the ambition of the enemy; and incessant watch was kept 
over it; its square towers at the corners and its fortified 



THE ARSENAL 249 

walls were perpetually guarded by picked troops. Once it 
happened that during a war against the Genoese and Turks, 
spies or paid emissaries of the enemy tried to set fire to it. 
In 1428 we hear of the case of a Brabangon, who is said to 
have been bribed by the Duke of Milan to destroy the estab- 
lishment ; he was condemned to be quartered on the Piazzetta ; 
and his body, tied to the tail of a horse, was dragged along 
the Riva dei Schiavoni. At the close of the Fifteenth Century, 
according to a traveller, who has left a descriptive memoir, 
Venice employed sixteen thousand workmen, caulkers, 
carpenters and painters, and thirty-six thousand seamen. It 
was about this time, in 1491, that the Senate created the 
special magistracy of " Provveditori al arsenale" 

These magistrates remained in office two years and eight 
months, and they had to leave their Venetian palaces and live 
in three houses specially built for them, the names of which 
— Paradise, Purgatory and Hell — are still preserved. Each 
one had to be on duty a fortnight in turn, during which time 
he had to sleep in a special apartment in the ramparts. He 
kept the keys of the arsenal in his room, made the rounds, 
and answered with his head for the safety of the place. To 
these three magistrates was attached a secretary, il fidelissimo 
segretario del reggimento. The arsenal had but one en- 
trance; and the only way of gaining admission, short of 
scaling the high walls, was by means of a small iron gate 
that opened on the little campo. 

Everything concerning ship-building and armament, direc- 
tion of the works, purchase of wood and iron, organisation of 



250 VENICE 

the workshops, discipline of the workmen, commanding of 
the troops, training of the seamen, storekeeping, provisioning 
and contracts was under the provveditoru They formed 
themselves into a committee for testing and examining all the 
new inventions submitted by their fellow-countrymen or by 
foreigners. The artillery formed a separate department, 
under the special management of another magistrate, the 
Provveditore all* artigliera. 

The outward appearance of the arsenal has hardly changed 
since the middle of the Sixteenth Century, as we learn from a 
curious engraving by Giacomo Franco, which represents the 
workmen leaving the yard after receiving their pay, and 
shows the same architecture and decoration that we see to- 
day, with, however, one exception : the great lions that orna- 
ment the entrance were not there then. These strange 
granite sentinels which give the building such a singular 
character, works of antiquity brought from Greece by the 
conquerors of the Peloponnesus and to which they did not 
hesitate to claim that their origin, or rather their original 
use, was to commemorate the famous Battle of Marathon 
were not placed on their pedestals until the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury. The learned authors of the famous compilation 
Venice et ses Lagunes, say that one of the lions stood on the 
Lepsina road from Athens to Eleusis, and that the other, the 
one that is sitting, was at the Piraeus. The following quo- 
tation leaves no doubt regarding the Venetians' seizure of 
these two trophies: " The gate is now called Porto Draco, or 
Lion Gate, on account of a colossal marble lion that was 



THE ARSENAL 251 

placed on a large pedestal near the mouth of the harbour. It 
was ten feet high, sitting on his haunches and looking to- 
wards the South. As its mouth was pierced it is thought 
that it was originally a fountain. In 1687 this lion was 
brought to Venice by the Venetians and placed at the en- 
trance of the arsenal of the city." 

The workmen were a picked body, and the Republic 
counted so much on their fidelity that the guard of the Grand 
Council and Senate was entrusted to them. They were 
soldiers as well as artisans, united under military organisation 
and brigaded and inspected in their work by the same men 
who commanded them as officers; and on many occasions 
this body of ten thousand — sometimes as many as sixteen 
thousand — men, was the secret guarantee of the internal 
safety of the Venetian government. 

Side by side with the provveditore and subordinate to him 
was the admiral whose title was one of courtesy rather than 
function for he was an artisan; however, he was an artisan 
of great skill and of high intelligence, and he was given the 
greatest authority. He superintended the works and had 
direction over the building-yards, and enjoyed many much- 
envied privileges. On ceremonial occasions, he wore a state 
costume that gave him almost the appearance of a noble: his 
robe was of red satin over which was a vestment that fell to 
the knees and on his head he wore a violet damask cap orna- 
mented with a gold cord and large tassels. 

At great public festivals and when the Doge, the Senate 
or visiting sovereigns paid a visit to the arsenal, the admiral 



252 VENICE 

occupied the place of honour, and always conducted the dis- 
tinguished visitors to the docks which were his special domain. 
On the day of the Sensa, when the Doge, accompanied by the 
Council and the ambassadors, went with great pomp on board 
the Bucentaur, to wed the Adriatic, the admiral served as 
pilot. He was held responsible for bringing the Signory 
back safely to shore, and had the power, if the weather was 
threatening, of commanding that they remain in the lagoons 
without venturing into more dangerous waters. 

The arsenal comprised three divisions: for ship-building, 
small arms and artillery. The Venetians surpassed all 
people of their day in construction and this superiority was 
attributed to two causes: the skill of the workmen and the 
quality of the timber they used. They adopted the plan of 
placing the administration of the forests under the naval de- 
partment, and all other purposes for which timber is used, 
such as the building of houses, fuel, etc., were made sub- 
ordinate. Timber was bought in the province of Treviso, 
in Friuli, in Carniola, in Istria and Dalmatia; but these 
provinces did not supply enough and they had to go to 
Albania and Germany as well. The timber, after being 
measured and stamped, was cut into solid beams and floated 
in the Adriatic near the Lido, where it was kept seasoning 
for ten years before it was used. 

The different pieces of which a galley was constructed were 
prepared in the workshops ready to be put together, and the 
skill was such in the arsenal that, on the day that King 
Henry III. of France visited the arsenal (1574), while he 



THE ARSENAL 253 

was attending a banquet in the Great Hall in two hours a 
galley was put together and launched. It goes without say- 
ing that this was a prodigious feat, and that the governors 
would scarcely have entrusted the life of the Doge in it ; but 
it was a means of demonstrating the powerful means of 
execution that they possessed. In times of political crises the 
activity here baffles imagination, and when the famous League 
was crowned by the victory of Lepanto, every morning for 
five successive days a new galley left the arsenal. To give an 
idea of the means employed to secure this degree of efficiency 
let us take one authentic detail: the State laid a permanent 
requisition on all crops of hemp grown upon its territories, 
and opened special storehouses for its sale, to which all pur- 
chasers were compelled to go to buy what they needed, at a 
price regulated by law, after the government had appropriated 
sufficient for its own needs. Hence arose the superior quality 
of the Venetian cordage over that of any other navy. 

The armoury included the arming of the galleys, the man- 
ufacture, preservation and repairing of small arms, and, as 
in our modern arsenals, supplying the troops. 

The artillery comprised the foundries, the training-school 
and parks for the gunners, — all under the superintendence of 
the provveditore. In the Sixteenth Century, the foundries 
were under the direction of the famous brothers Alberghetti, 
who formed a regular school of cannon-foundry; artists like 
these impressed their own stamp on every piece that went 
forth, and thus it is that whenever one finds a gun of 
Venetian make in any of the artillery museums and collec- 



254 VENICE 

tions in Europe, it is almost always a masterpiece, not only 
of casting but of design. In addition to these branches, 
there was a superintendent of military machines who was re- 
quired to keep himself informed regarding all the inventions 
belonging to warfare. 



THE DOGE 

WILLIAM CAREJV HAZLITT 

THE first duty of the Doge on rising was attendance 
at the service of Mass, which was performed every 
morning in his own private chapel; and he after- 
wards proceeded to apply his attention to his magisterial 
functions. Accompanied by his notary, he either presided 
over his own Court at the Palace, or, if no cases of impor- 
tance happened to be pending there, he was present at the 
sittings of one of the other tribunals, or of the Common 
Pleas, which used to be held like that of the Romans and 
Lombards, under the open sky. We casually glean that, at 
the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, Friday was the day 
for presenting petitions and appeals. The Doge undoubtedly 
possessed the power of reversing all decisions, and it vested in 
him down to the Twelfth Century to pay as well as appoint 
the judges of his own Court, to each of whom his Serenity 
was expected to send annually four casks of wine as a free 
gift from the vineyards of Comanzo in Chioggia. 

From time to time he was in the habit of paying a visit of 
inspection and inquiry to the several islands which lay 
around the capital, in order that he might be in a position to 
check abuses, and to prevent any arbitrary stretches of power 
on the part of the Tribunes and other subordinate members 
of the Government. Occasionally it was his practice to 

255 



256 VENICE 

show himself formally in public, and to give his benediction 
to the assembled people; and when it happened that the ful- 
filment of his multifarious avocations admitted relaxation 
and mental repose, his Serenity sometimes took gondola and 
followed the chase in the woods of Loredo. 

Even when the archaic Palace Court had given way to 
that of the Judges of the Commune, the Doge was held to be 
the Fountain and Mirror of Justice; and not only was any 
question, which a Judge might feel himself incompetent to 
decide, referable in the last resort to the Throne, but in all 
instances, where a suitor or a prisoner might have reasonable 
grounds for disputing a judicial award, a right of appeal lay 
in the same quarter. 

Even in primitive times the ducal costume was not without 
some share of splendour. The Berretta (beretum) or Bon- 
net, of the original type of which we know nothing, but 
which seems at a tolerably early date to have borne some re- 
semblance to the diadem of the kings of ancient Phrygia, was 
a high cap of conical form, set with pearls, 1 not unsimilar 
to the Episcopal mitre and to the headdresses seen on Orien- 
tal coins and paintings. 

The tradition, which ascribes to the munificence of the 
contemporary Abbess of San Zaccaria the presentation of a 
jewelled headdress to the Doge Tradonico (863-864), is 
suspected of being apocryphal; and assuredly it is so in 

1 The berretta was at last made so weighty that the Doge seldom 
wore it. Towards the middle of the Fourteenth Century, the Pro- 
curators of Saint Mark were charged to remedy this evil. 



THE DOGE 257 

respect to the details. The Lady Superior may have made 
an offering of some ornamental bonnet, manufactured in the 
house, more or less on the model of that then worn by 
the head of the State; but the earliest tangible vestige of 
the corno is the mosaic at Saint Mark's attributed to the 
Eleventh or Twelfth Century, and the apparent prototype of 
the later berretta, which is mentioned in 1328 as supplied at 
the cost of the Commune, but does not present itself anterior 
to that date in any authentic document or passage. The 
spirit and tone of the Ducal attire strike us as half Lom- 
bardic or Frankish, half Oriental; the oblation of the 
Abbess was in the taste of the age; and it was doubtless 
simpler even than that delineated on the sculpture above- 
mentioned. The strict regulations imposed on every depart- 
ment and member of the Executive extended to the ducal 
bonnet, for, according to the Coronation Oath of 1328, it was 
to be lodged under the care of the Procurators of Saint Mark, 
and only to be delivered to the Doge for use on special oc- 
casions; and the motive for this caution is to be found in the 
more sumptuous form and embellishments which the bonnet 
gradually received, and the apprehension of dishonest prac- 
tices by minor officials or attendants. 

On the exceedingly rare occasion when the Dogaressa was 
also crowned, a second berretta was provided; but after the 
death of Silvestro Valier in 1700 there was a twofold provi- 
sion that the consort was not again to receive this honour, and 
that it was not to be worn by the relict of a deceased Doge. 

Underneath it, after a time, the chief magistrate wore a 



258 VENICE 

white linen coif, in order that, as a mark of the peculiarly 
exalted dignity of his office, his head might remain covered 
when the bonnet itself was removed. When the Grand 
Council had been instituted, and the election of the Doge 
rested with it, it became a practice for the new Serenissimo 
to doff the berretta in returning thanks for the honour con- 
ferred, and on one occasion, when the Doge Morosini was in 
1693 appointed captain-general in the Morea, he rose from 
his place and uncovered, while he signified his acceptance of 
the trust, and his resolution to serve his country to the best of 
his power. In the case of high official functionaries the Doge 
touched hands; but otherwise he at certain public receptions 
extended his hand to be kissed. 

A doublet of red velvet, with straight sleeves tapering to- 
ward the wrist, and a high collar, was in part hidden by an 
outer mantle, sometimes curiously figured, which descended 
almost to the feet, with a border of gold fringe and a small 
circular clasp of gold. A sable cape, red stockings and shoes 
of a somewhat primitive pattern completed his attire; and it 
transpires in connection with a historical episode of 107 1 
that the Doge was accustomed out-of-doors to use sandals, 
probably as a protection against the mire in the public ways 
in wet weather. In the drawing, from which the present 
description is borrowed, the hands are not gloved. 

The Bucentaur is cited, as if it were hardly then a novelty, 
in the Coronation Oath of 1328, and is there said to be one 
of the accessories furnished by the State as a means of aug- 
menting the ducal dignity. No particulars are given, and 



THE DOGE 259 

possibly, if the vessel already existed, none were thought to be 
requisite. Nor is any help forthcoming toward a solution of 
the name, which some have connected with the Virgilian 
CentauruSj of which the figure of a centaur may be supposed 
to have adorned the prow. But in 1205, when the newly 
elected Doge was to be fetched from his official post at a 
distance, a feeling of the propriety of some special mark of 
respect showed itself in the embellishment of the sides of 
the galley despatched to the Serenissimo with silk taffeta 
hangings. 

John Evelyn visited the Arsenal in 1646, and saw the 
Bucentaur, of which he speaks as having an ample deck so 
contrived that the galley slaves are not visible, and on the 
poop a throne for the Doge, when he went to espouse the 
Adriatic. 

The last State-barge constructed for the use of the Doge 
was launched in 1729. It was 100 feet in length, 21 in 
breadth, with an upper and a lower deck, of which the latter 
was reserved for the oarsmen. At the extremity towards the 
poop on the superior deck, which was covered, near the 
raised seat allotted to the Doge, was a small window, through 
which his Serenity threw the ring, when he wedded the 
Adriatic in the name of the Republic ; and forty-eight others 
were placed along the sides to enable the company to enjoy 
the spectacle before and around them. The fittings and 
furniture of the vessel were luxurious, and it was adorned 
with symbolical figures, bas-reliefs, and other representations 
within and without, set off by elaborate gilding. 



260 VENICE 

The lady who published the account of the religious and 
other festivals of the Republic, Giustina Renier Michiel, 
scion of two noble and ancient houses, beheld the last Bucen- 
taur, before it was brutally destroyed by the French in con- 
junction with some Venetian adventurers for the sake of the 
gilt work. 

"Alas!" she writes, "I myself saw Frenchmen and 
Venetians, full of derision and insult, combine to dis- 
mantle the Bucintoro and burn it for the gold upon it. . . 
It was in the form of a galley, and two hundred feet long 
(sic) with two decks. The first of these was occupied by a 
hundred and sixty rowers, the handsomest and strongest of 
the fleet, who sat four men to each oar, and there awaited 
their orders; forty other sailors completed the crew, the 
upper deck was divided lengthwise by a partition, pierced 
with arched doorways, ornamented with gilded figures, and 
covered with a roof supported by caryatides — the whole sur- 
mounted by a canopy of crimson velvet embroidered with 
gold. Under this were ninety seats, and at the stern a still 
richer chamber for the Doge's throne, over which drooped 
the banner of Saint Mark. The prow was double-beaked, 
and the sides of the vessel were enriched with figures of 
Justice, Peace, Sea, Land, and other allegories and 
ornaments." 1 

The yearly marriage of the Adriatic was more immediately 
and palpably a pageant and a symbol; but it has been ren- 
dered apparent that the ceremony involved and denoted a 
^owells's Venetian Life (1883). 



THE DOGE 261 

political principle, on which the Republic was prepared, nearly 
down to the last, to insist at all hazards against all comers. 
Germany, France, Spain, England, were in turn reminded 
of the claim which the unique wedding imported, in language 
which could not be misunderstood. 



TOMBS OF THE DOGES 

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE 

THE gondola plunges northwards into the deserted 
lanes. The reflections in the water tremble in 
the concave arches of the bridges like a rose, white 
and green branched drapery of silk. We leave the city; it 
is noon and the sky is of a burning whiteness. Stranded 
rafts extend their wet and shining logs over the plain of mo- 
tionless water. Facing us is an island surrounded by walls, 
the cemetery, that overpowers the fiery whiteness with its own 
crude whites. Further on, two or three sails flit into the 
channels; on the horizon, the vaporous chain of mountains 
traces its fringe of snow on the sky. The toothed prow rises 
out of the water like a strange fish swimming tail foremost, 
and its black form pierces and presses on and on through in- 
numerable scintillations of little gilded waves amid the deep 
silence. 

On an open square rises the equestrian statue of Colleoni, 
the second one that was cast in Italy, a true portrait like that 
of Gattamelata in Padua, a real portrait of a condottiere 
sitting on his stout war-horse, in his cuirass, with legs wide 
apart, the bust too short, a coarse face of a soldier who com- 
mands and shouts, not at all embellished but taken from life, 
and full of energy. In front is San Giovanni e Paolo, a 

262 



TOMBS OF THE DOGES 263 

Gothic church, Italo-Gothic, and consequently gay. The 
round pillars, the wide and expansive arches and the almost 
white windows do away with all the funereal and mystic ideas 
that are suggested by the cathedrals of the North. Like the 
Campo Santo at Pisa, and Santa Croce at Florence, this 
church is peopled with tombs: add to them those in the 
Frari, and you have the mausoleum of the Republic. The 
majority date from the Fifteenth, or the early part of the Six- 
teenth Century, the brilliant age of the city, the days when 
the great men and great actions that had passed away were 
still of sufficiently recent date for the new rising art to catch 
their image and express its sincerity. Others show the dawn 
of that great light; and still others show its decline; and 
thus, through a row of sepulchres, we can follow the history 
of human genius from its blossoming, through its virility to 
its decadence. 

In the monument of Doge Morosini, who died in 1382, 
the pure Gothic style flowers in all its elegance. A flowered 
arcade festoons its lacework above the dead. On either side 
rises a charming little turret supported by a small column 
ornamented with trefoils, embroidered with little figures, 
bristling with steeples and bell-turrets, a kind of delicate 
vegetation in which the marble bristles and unfolds like a 
spiky plant that puts forth its prickles and flowers both 
together. The Doge sleeps with his hands crossed upon his 
breast. Here we have real mortuary monuments: an alcove 
sometimes with its canopy or curtain; a marble bed carved 
and ornamented like the wooden frame on which the ancient 



264 VENICE 

limbs of the man reposed at night when alive ; and inside, the 
man in his ordinary robes, calm in sleep, confident and pious 
because he acquitted himself well in life; a true effigy with- 
out over emphasis or anguish, one that leaves with the sur- 
vivors the grave and peaceful image that their memories 
should retain. 

That is the seriousness of the Middle Ages. However, 
beneath the religious severity we already see the dawn of the 
feeling for living corporeal forms that is to be the special 
discovery of the following century. In the mausoleum of 
the Doge Marco Corner, between the five ogival arcades 
with trefoil carved work topped with delicate spires, the 
Virtues, joyous long-robed angels, look at us with spontaneous 
and striking expressiveness. In this dawn of discovery 
the artist naively risked airs and physiognomies that later 
masters rejected for the sake of dignity and obedience to rules. 
In this respect, the Renaissance, which reduced Art to Classic 
nobility, really lessened it, just as the purists of our Seven- 
teenth Century impoverished the rich language of the Six- 
teenth. 

As we advance, we see some feature of the new art con- 
stantly unfolding. In the tomb of Doge Antonio Vernier 
(d. 1400), the paganism of the Renaissance shows itself in 
one detail of the ornamentation, — the shell niches. All the 
rest is still angular, flowery, delicately chiselled and Gothic, 
the sculpture as well as the architecture. The heads, how- 
ever, are somewhat heavy and awkward, too short and some- 
times carried by a wry neck. Artists copy the real: they 



TOMBS OF THE DOGES 265 

have not yet made a final choice of proportions, they do not 
know the canon of Greek statuaries, they are still plunged 
in observation and in the imitation of life ; but their mistakes 
are delightful. The Madonna whose neck is bent too much 
clasps her son with such lively tenderness! There is so 
much goodness and candour in those rather too round 
maidens' heads. The Five Virgins in their shell niches have 
such a penetrating youthful freshness and truth! Nothing 
touches me so much as these sculptures which mark the close 
of Mediaeval art. 

All these works are inventive, national, sometimes even 
bourgeoises if you like, but they have an incomparable 
vitality. The dazzling and overwhelming domination 
of Classical beauty had by no means come to discipline 
the enthusiasm of original genuises; there were provincial 
schools of art that were accommodated to the climate, the 
country and the whole condition of affairs about them, free 
as yet from academies and capitals. Nothing in the world 
comes up to the real originality, the intimate and full senti- 
ment and the entire soul imprinted on a work : then the work 
is as individual and as rich in shadings as the soul itself. One 
believes in it ; the marble becomes a sort of journal in which 
are put all the confidences of a human life. 

If we take a few steps forward in the course of the age, we 
notice a gradual diminution in this simplicity and naivete 
in art. The mortuary monument changes into one of heroic 
pomp. Round arcades extend their noble span above the 
dead. Arabesques gaily run around the polished borders. 



266 VENICE 

Columns stand in rows with blooming acanthus capitals; 
sometimes they rise in stages one above another, and the Four 
Orders of architecture reveal their variety for the delight of 
the eyes. The tomb then becomes a colossal triumphal arch ; 
some tombs have twenty statues of almost life size. The 
idea of death disappears ; the defunct no longer lies awaiting 
the resurrection and the last day, he sits and looks ; he " lives 
again " in the marble, as one epitaph ambitiously says. Simi- 
larly, statues that adorn his memorial are gradually trans- 
formed. In the middle of the Fifteenth Century, they are 
still very frequently stiff and constrained; the legs of the 
youthful warriors are somewhat slender, like those of Peru- 
gino's archangels; they are covered with lion-head boots 
and leggings in which are mingled reminiscences of feudal 
armour and admiration of antique costume. Both bodies 
and heads border on the real ; the excellence of the faces con- 
sists in their involuntary seriousness, their intense and simple 
expression, the force of their attitude and their fixed and 
profound gaze. On the approach of the Sixteenth Century, 
ease and movement come to them. The draperies twine and 
fall grandly around robust bodies. The muscles rise and dis- 
play themselves. The young knights of the Middle Ages 
are now athletes. The virgins, motionless and hooded in 
their severe mantles, begin to smile and grow animated. 
Their Greek robes, creased and falling, leave bare their 
breasts and the slender form of their charming feet. Leaning 
forwards, half turned backwards, bending from one hip, 
standing proudly erect and thoughtful, they reveal beneath 



TOMBS OF THE DOGES 267 

their winding draperies the diversities of the living form ; and 
the eyes follow the harmonious curves of the beautiful human 
animal that in repose, in motion, and in every attitude has 
only to live in order to be happy and perfect. 

Nowhere are they more beautiful than on the tomb of 
Doge Vendramini (d. 1470). There art is still simple and 
in its first blossom; the old gravity still exists in its entirety; 
but the taste for poetry and the picturesque which is just 
dawning already suffuses it with its richness and splendour. 
Under arcades with golden flowers, and in the spaces of a 
Corinthian colonnade, warriors and women draped after the 
antique gaze or weep. They are not restless, they do not at- 
tempt to attract attention ; and their restrained expression is 
all the stronger for it. It is their entire body, it is their type 
and their structure, it is their vigorous necks, their ample and 
magnificent hair, and their direct faces that speak. One 
woman sadly raises her eyes to Heaven ; another, half turning 
away, utters a cry. You would say they were by Giovanni 
Bellini. They belong to that strong and limited age when 
the model, like the artist, reduced to five or six energetic 
feelings, conveys them through his intact sensibility, and in 
one effort concentrates complete faculties which later will be 
deadened by indulgence and wasted on details. 

With the Sixteenth Century, all the great passions come 
to an end. Tombs become great operatic machines. That 
of Doge Pesaro (d. 1669), is nothing but a gigantic court 
decoration rearing its emphatic pile of luxury. Four negroes 
clothed in white and kneeling on cushions support the second 



268 VENICE 

tier and their black faces grin above their porters' bodies; 
between them, as a gross contrast, parades a skeleton. As for 
the Doge, he throws himself back with the importance of a 
great lord reproving clowns. Chimeras crouch at his feet, a 
canopy is over his head, and on both sides groups of statues 
stand in declamatory or sentimental attitudes. Elsewhere, 
in the tomb of Doge Valier (d. 1656), we see art abandon 
bombast for mere prettiness. The mortuary alcove envelops 
itself in a vast yellow marble curtain figured with flowers 
and held up by a number of little nude angels as playful as 
Cupids. The Doge has the dignity of a magistrate; and his 
wife, frizzled, wrinkled and dressed in flowing materials, 
delicately holds up her left hand with the air of a dowager. 
Lower down, a pier-glass Victory crowns the good old man 
who looks related to Belisarius; and, all around, bas-reliefs 
show groups of gracious and delicate women with drawing- 
room manners. 

All this is spoiled art, but still it is art; I mean that the 
sculptor and his contemporaries have a real and individual 
taste, that they love certain things in their world and their 
life, that they imitated and embellished them, that their pref- 
erences are not an academy affair, a work of education, a 
bookish pedantry, nor a conventional preference. There is 
nothing else in our century. By its coldness, insipidity and 
laboriousness, Canova's tomb, executed according to his own 
plans, is ridiculous: a great pyramid of white marble oc- 
cupies the entire field of vision ; the door is open, there it is 
that he desires to rest, like a Pharaoh in his sepulchre. To- 



TOMBS OF THE DOGES 269 

wards the door advances a procession of sentimental figures. 
Atlas, Eudoras and Cymodoceas, a nude sleeping genius 
extinguishing his torch, another one sighing with head ten- 
derly bent like Bitaube's young Joseph. A winged lion 
weeps despairingly with his snout on his paws and his paws 
on a book : it would take a college professor twenty minutes 
to comment on this allegorical drama. Close by, poor Titian 
has had inflicted upon him a tomb like a portico, scraped and 
shining like an Empire clock, adorned with four pretty, pen- 
sive, spiritualistic women, two poor expressive old men with 
sharp and salient muscles, and two young winged heads 
wearing crowns. One would say that these artists are void 
of any proper impression, that they have nothing to say for 
themselves, that the human body speaks to them no longer, 
that they have been reduced to hunt in their portfolios for the 
assistance of lines, and that their whole talent consists in 
making up an interesting charade according to the last sym- 
bolic and aesthetic text-book. Death is something, however, 
and it seems well that one should be able to have something 
of one's own to say about it without a book; but I begin to 
think that we no longer have any ideas about it any more 
than we have of any other important matter. We drive it 
out of our minds as though it were an unwelcome guest: 
when we follow a funeral, it is only for decency's sake, and 
we pass the time talking to our neighbour about business or 
literature. Art lives on great determinations, just as criticism 
lives on nice distinctions, that is why we are not artists but 
critics. 



270 VENICE 

The same idea recurs when we look at the paintings. 
There are some admirable ones in a chapel of the church 
dedicated to the Holy Rosary. One by Titian is the Martyr- 
dom of St. Peter of Verona. Domenichino has repeated the 
same subject at Bologna; but an ignoble fear disfigures his 
personages. Titian's are grand, like fighters. What struck 
him was not grimacing or suffering expression of a convulsed 
visage but the strong action of a murder, the stretch of a 
striking arm, the agitated draperies of a running fugitive, 
the magnificent spring of trees stretching out their sombre 
branches above blood and armour. Still more vehement is a 
crucifixion by Tintoret. In this all is movement and dis- 
order; the poetry of light and shadow fills the air with 
dazzling and lugubrious contrasts. A shaft of yellow light 
falls across the nude Christ who looks like a glorified corpse. 
Above him, heads of holy women float in a stream of splendid 
atmosphere, and the body of the impenitent thief, savage and 
writhing embosses the sky with its ruddy muscular frame. 
In that tempest of troubled and intense light, it seems as if 
the crosses are swaying and the executed men are about to fall ; 
as a climax to the poignant emotion and grandiose disorder, 
in the background we see under a luminous cloud a heap of 
resuscitated bodies. The whole of the walls is covered with 
similar paintings by the same hand. Christ rises to Heaven 
and around Him great nude angels darting through space 
are furiously sounding their trumpets. The Virgin is 
carried off by an impetuous throng of little angels whilst 
below her the apostles are crying and falling down. On 



TOMBS OF THE DOGES 271 

every side and in every picture light vibrates; there is not 
an atom of air that does not palpitate, and life is so over- 
flowing that it breathes and swarms in the trees, stones, 
ground and clouds, in every colour and every form, in the 
universal fever of inanimate nature. 



WEALTH AND INDUSTRIES OF OLD 
VENICE 

WILLIAM B. SCOTT 

IN the midsummer of the city's history — about 1500, 
we shall say, which is rather later than its meridian — 
it must have offered as perfect a theatre for the sensuous 
enjoyment of life as any city in any time has done, and thus 
it is that the Art in its highest development, in the hands of 
Titian, Giorgione and Paul Veronese, corresponds with and 
expresses not an enervated nor a relaxed condition of the 
mental powers by any means — that comes afterwards — but a 
life of exertion, all the vital forces strong, sensuous gratifica- 
tion and pleasure being servants, not masters, and success fol- 
lowing invariably the clearly-understood motive of self- 
aggrandisement. 

For three centuries before this, war as well as trade had 
gradually made Venice the richest city in the world. In no 
Italian war, intestine or foreign, throughout the entire his- 
tory of the various States of that country, must we look for 
honour or justice. The leaders were as leaders are now, 
showing noble qualities of self-devotion, bravery and fidelity ; 
but we speak of the motives and reasons for Italian wars, and 
those of Venice are conspicuous for being wars of plunder or 
of destruction, rapacity and jealousy being the motives. The 
greatest early accession to the wealth of the " City of the Sea " 
was on the taking of Constantinople by the allied Crusaders 

27a 



WEALTH OF OLD VENICE 273 

in 1206, when the submission of the metropolis, intimated by 
the crowd of priests and women bearing the cross and ap- 
pealing to the barons as to brethren, was followed by such 
excesses and monstrosities of cruelty, that we hesitate to 
believe in their history; and the value of the pillage seems 
almost, even at this day, equally incredible. In the palaces 
of Bucoleon and Blachernae the accumulations of centuries, 
collected from all parts of the known world, were seized, 
and in the churches also — the difference between the creeds 
of the East and West making sacrilege a virtue. At that 
time, silks, furs, tapestries, porcelain, glass, and the arts of 
the finest metal-work, as well as the Fine Arts of painting, 
enamel, and mosaic, were all Oriental ; and the portion that 
fell to the share of Venice, estimated by Gibbon at a sum 
about equal to ten years of the then revenue of England, 
must have contributed largely to make it what it shortly 
afterwards became — the most skilful of all the cities of the 
West in certain luxurious manufactures. Villehardouin, 
quoted in Smedley's able little book, Sketches of Vene- 
tian Historian, says: " It is my belief that the plunder of 
this city exceeded all that had been witnessed since the 
creation of the world." Gold and silver in every form, 
vases for every use which the caprice of luxury could suggest, 
and of more various names than we can hope to translate 
with accuracy — those now unknown myrrshines, which Pom- 
pey had won in his triumphs over Mithridates and Tigranes; 
gems wrought into festal cups, among which the least precious 
were framed of turquoise, jasper, or amethyst; jewels which 



274 VENICE 

the affection or the pride of Oriental despots was wont to 
deck their imperial brides; crowns of solid gold crusted with 
pearls; rings and fibula set with fabulous or world-famous 
diamonds, unnumbered jacinths, emeralds, sapphires, chrys- 
olites and topazes that had been hoarded as treasure against 
the day of need ; and " lastly those matchless carbuncles 
which, placed afterwards on the high altar of St. Mark, 
were said to blaze with intrinsic light, and serve as lamps — 
these are but a sample of the treasures that accrued to Venice ; 
and the historian, in adverting to them, appears conscious 
that language must fail him in the attempt to convey an 
adequate impression of their immeasurable extent, their in- 
appreciable cost and their inexhaustible luxury." 

Many of the articles from this sack were afterwards to be 
seen in Venice adorning the altars and reliquaries, and pos- 
sibly on the berretta? and other appliances of the Doge ; but 
the most notable articles transported to the lagoon, and, it 
is said, almost the only ones whose value depended on their 
Fine Art, were the Bronze Horses now over the porch of St. 
Mark. To quote the same authority: "The long cat- 
alogue of precious works of Art, ruined by stupid, brutal, and 
unfeeling ignorance, excites no less astonishment than regret 
and indignation. Books, the whole literature of the time, 
never to be replaced ; marbles, pictures, statues, obelisks and 
bronzes; which the magnificence, the pride, the luxury, or 

1 This famous covering of the head of the Venetian State is one of 
the most interesting appendages of royalty, as we may call it, in 
European history. 



WEALTH OF OLD VENICE 275 

the good taste of her princes had lavished, during nine cen- 
turies, upon this their favourite capital, prizes which Egypt, 
Greece and Rome had supplied, and which had justly ren- 
dered Constantinople the wonder of nations, perished in- 
discriminately beneath the fury of the marauders ; and while 
almost every church throughout Christendom received a large 
accession to its reliquary from the translated bones of saints 
and confessors (a catalogue of these disgusting but super- 
human valuables falling to the share of Venice is still extant) , 
scarcely one monument of ancient skill and taste was thought 
worthy of preservation. The Venetians afforded a solitary 
example in the removal of the four horses of gilt bronze from 
the hippodrome. Antiquaries appear to hesitate concerning 
the date or even the native country of these horses; for by 
some they have been assigned to the Roman time and to the 
age of Nero; by others, to the Greeks of Chio, at a much 
earlier period. Though far from deserving a place among 
the choicest specimens of Art, their possession, if we may 
trust their most generally received history, has always been 
much coveted. Augustus, it is said, brought them from 
Alexandria, after the conquest of Anthony, and erected them 
on a triumphal arch in Rome; hence they were successively 
removed by Nero, Domitian, Trajan, and Constantine, to 
arches of their own; and in each of these positions, it is be- 
lieved, they were attached to a chariot. Constantine, in the 
end, transferred them to his new capital." 

At this period St. Mark's was built, and, externally, pretty 
much as it is at present, and the two granite columns had been 



276 VENICE 

placed on the quay of the Piazzetta, also brought from Con- 
stantinople at a former time, although as yet they had not 
received their crowning burdens, the Lion of St. Mark, and 
the figure of St. Theodore standing on the crocodile. Very 
shortly after this time, the two square piers, the visitor will 
also remember, near the corner of the Ducal Palace, were 
brought from Acre and other plunder of a semi-artistic kind 
showed that the love of beautiful, or perhaps rather of rare, 
things, had begun to distinguish the Venetians from all other 
men employed then in war or trade. These objects, indeed, 
were rather trophies than refined works, but they remain to 
us to indicate the taste that appreciated whatever decorated 
either the city or the person — a taste that assisted to develop 
the prodigious prosperity of the Republic at the time of its 
greatest power. The incessant activity and love of adven- 
ture abroad united with that love of Art and of pleasure at 
home. At first the settlers had to fight for the preservation 
of the soil they built upon, and they never ceased fighting for 
dominion till the whole earth acknowledged them foremost. 
An enumeration of the articles peculiar to that time to the 
trade of Venice would be curious enough now. The ships 
of her merchants exchanged from country to country what- 
ever could be converted into money, but they were still more 
employed in exporting. After the silk manufacture was 
transplanted from the Bosphorus, it was very soon extended 
to an infinitely greater amount of produce than it had at- 
tained in its original seat, and being interdicted for domestic 
use to all the citizens or their wives, save magistrates, as 



WEALTH OF OLD VENICE 277 

many other luxuries were (a Spartan simplicity for a brief 
time being maintained), the whole of Christendom was sup- 
plied from Venice. A little later sprang up the manufacture 
of cloths, to which we in England contributed wool before 
we could use it ourselves; and long prior to its production 
elsewhere, gilt and stamped leather brought into the Exchange 
100,000 ducats a year, as did waxen tapers to a somewhat 
similar extent, and the liqueurs and poisons so celebrated or 
so feared. To correct these last, the glass-makers of Murano, 
the only glass-makers in the world for centuries, fabricated 
the apocryphal thin drinking-cups that flew to pieces on 
receiving the deadly potion. Besides this article of doubtful 
commercial value, these glass-houses began the making of 
mirrors, as well as vessels of all sorts, — the architect they 
had assisted since early times, — thus aiding civilisation in 
Italy in several ways, while the Northern nations lagged be- 
hind. And when Germany began the new arts of printing 
and engraving, Venice, where a trade in stencilled or stamped 
playing-cards had previously existed, very quickly advanced 
in front of her, showing equal learning and greater dexterity. 
During the first age of printing, the number of books pro- 
duced in Venice exceeds that of all the presses of France and 
England together; and many of them are besides very per- 
fect specimens of the new art, such as those by the Aldi from 
1488, the year in which the elder Aldus settled in the city. 
The production of such a book as The Hypnerotomachia 
Poiiphili alone is enough to place it first in the early history 
of illustrated typography. 



THE BRIDES OF VENICE 

JOHN RUSKIN 

THE place where we may best commence our inquiry 
is one renowned in the history of Venice, the space 
of ground before the Church of Santa Maria For- 
mosa; a spot which, after the Rialto and St. Mark's Place, 
ought to possess a peculiar interest in the mind of the traveller, 
in consequence of its connection with the most touching and 
true legend of the Brides of Venice. That legend is related 
at length in every Venetian history, and, finally, has been 
told by the poet Rogers, in a way which renders it impossible 
for any one to tell it after him. I have only, therefore, to 
remind the reader that the capture of the brides took place in 
the cathedral church, St. Pietro di Castello ; and that this of 
Santa Maria Formosa is connected with the tale, only because 
it was yearly visited with prayers by the Venetian maidens, 
on the anniversary of their ancestors' deliverance. For that 
deliverance, their thanks were to be rendered to the Virgin; 
and there was no church then dedicated to the Virgin, in 
Venice, except this. 

Neither of the cathedral church, nor of this dedicated to 
St. Mary the Beautiful, is one stone left upon another. But, 
from that which has been raised on the site of the latter, we 
may receive a most important lesson, if first we glance back 

278 




J 



THE BRIDES OF VENICE 279 

to the traditional history of the church which has been 
destroyed. 

No more honourable epithet than " traditional " can be 
attached to what is recorded concerning it, yet I should 
grieve to lose the legend of its first erection. The Bishop of 
Uderzo, driven by the Lombards from his bishopric, as he 
was praying, beheld in a vision the Virgin Mother, who 
ordered him to found a church in her honour, in the place 
where he should see a white cloud rest. And when he went 
out, the white cloud went before him; and on the place 
where it rested he built a church, and it was called the 
Church of St. Mary the Beautiful, from the loveliness of the 
form in which she had appeared in the vision. 

The first church stood only for about two centuries. It 
was rebuilt in 864, and enriched with various relics some fifty 
years later; relics belonging principally to St. Nicodemus, 
and much lamented when they and the church were together 
destroyed by fire in 1105. 

It was then rebuilt in " magnifica forma," much re- 
sembling, according to Corner, the architecture of the chancel 
of St. Mark. 

Thus, by Corner, we are told that this church, resembling 
St. Mark's, " remained untouched for more than four cen- 
turies," until, in 1689, it was thrown down by an earthquake, 
and restored by the piety of a rich merchant, Turrin Toroni, 
" in ornatissima forma " ; and that, for the greater beauty of 
the renewed church, it had added to it two facades of marble. 
With this information that of the Padre dell' Oratoria agrees, 



280 VENICE 

only he gives the date of the earlier rebuilding of the church 
in 1 1 75, and ascribes it to an architect of the name of Bar- 
betta. But Quadri, in his usually accurate little guide, tells 
us that this Barbetta rebuilt the church in the Fourteenth 
Century; and that, of the two facades, so much admired by 
Corner, one is of the Sixteenth Century, and its architect un- 
known ; and the rest of the church is of the Seventeenth, " in 
the style of Sansovino." 

There is no occasion to examine, or endeavour to recon- 
cile, these conflicting accounts. All that is necessary for the 
reader to know is, that every vestige of the church in which 
the ceremony took place was destroyed at least as early as 
1689; and that the ceremony itself, having been abolished 
in the close of the Fourtenth Century, is only to be conceived 
as taking place in that more ancient church, resembling St. 
Mark's, which, even according to Quadri, existed until that 
period. I would, therefore, endeavour to fix the reader's 
mind for a moment, on the contrast between the former and 
latter aspect of this space of ground ; the former, when it had 
its Byzantine church, and its yearly procession of the Doge 
and the Brides; and the latter, when it has its Renaissance 
church " in the style of Sansovino," and its yearly honouring 
is done away. 

And, first, let us consider for a little the significance and 
nobleness of that early custom of the Venetians, which 
brought about the attack and the rescue of the year 943: 
that there should be but one marriage day for the nobles of 
the whole nation, so that all might rejoice together; and that 



THE BRIDES OF VENICE 281 

the sympathy might be full, not only of the families who that 
year beheld the alliance of their children, and prayed for 
them in one crowd, weeping before the altar, but of all the 
families of the State, who saw, in the day which brought 
happiness to others, the anniversary of their own. Imagine 
the strong bond of brotherhood thus sanctified among them, 
and consider also the effect on the minds of the youth of the 
State ; the greater deliberation and openness necessarily given 
to the contemplation of marriage, to which all the people were 
solemnly to bear testimony; the more lofty and unselfish 
tone which it would give to all their thoughts. It was the 
exact contrary of stolen marriage. It was marriage to 
which God and man were taken for witnesses, and every 
eye was invoked for its glance, and every tongue for its 
prayers. 

Later historians have delighted themselves in dwelling on 
the pageantry of the marriage day itself, but I do not find 
that they have authority for the splendour of their descrip- 
tions. I cannot find a word in the older chronicles about the 
jewels or dress of the brides, and I believe the ceremony to 
have been more quiet and homely than is usually supposed. 
The only sentence which gives colour to the usual accounts of 
it is one of Sansovino's, in which he says that the magnificent 
dress of the brides in his day was founded " on ancient cus- 
tom." " Dressed according to ancient usage in white, and 
with her hair thrown down upon her shoulders, interwoven 
with threads of gold." This was when she was first brought 
out of her chamber to be seen by the guests invited to the 



282 VENICE 

espousals. " And when the form of the espousal has been 
gone through, she is led, to the sound of pipes and trumpets, 
and other musical instruments, round the room, dancing 
serenely all the time, and bowing herself before the guests; 
and so she returns to her chamber: and when other guests 
have arrived, she again comes forth, and makes the circuit of 
the chamber. And this is repeated for an hour or somewhat 
more; and then, accompanied by many ladies who wait for 
her, she enters a gondola without its felze (canopy), and, 
seated on a somewhat raised seat covered with carpets, with a 
great number of gondolas following her, she goes to visit the 
monasteries and convents, wheresoever she has any relations." 
However this may have been, the circumstances of the rite 
were otherwise very simple. Each maiden brought her 
dowry with her in a small cassetta, or chest; they went 
first to the cathedral, and waited for the youths, who, having 
come, they heard mass together, and the bishop preached to 
them and blessed them; and so each bridegroom took his 
bride and her dowry and bore her home. 

It seems that the alarm given by the attack of the pirates 
put an end to the custom of fixing one day for all marriages: 
but the main objects of the institution were still attained by 
the perfect publicity given to the marriages of all the noble 
families; the bridegroom standing in the Court of the Ducal 
Palace to receive congratulations on his betrothal, and the 
whole body of the nobility attending the nuptials, and rejoic- 
ing, " as at some personal good fortune; since, by the con- 
stitution of the State, they are for ever incorporated together, 



THE BRIDES OF VENICE 283 

as if one and the same family." But the festival of the 2nd 
of February, after the year 943, seems to have been observed 
only in memory of the delivery of the brides, and no longer 
set apart for public nuptials. 

There is much difficulty in reconciling the various ac- 
counts, or distinguishing the inaccurate ones, of the manner 
of keeping this memorable festival. Sansovino says that the 
success of the pursuit of the pirates was owing to the ready 
help and hard fighting of the men of the district of Sta. 
Maria Formosa, for the most part trunk-makers; and that 
they, having been presented after the victory to the Doge 
and the Senate, were told to ask some favour for their reward. 
" The good men then said that they desired the Prince, with 
his wife and the Signory, to visit every year the church of 
their district on the day of its feast. And the Prince asking 
them, 'Suppose it should rain?' they answered, 'We will 
give you hats to cover you; and if you are thirsty, we will 
give you to drink.' Whence is it that the Vicar, in the 
name of the people, presents to the Doge, on his visit, two 
flasks of malvoisie and two oranges ; and presents to him two 
gilded hats, bearing the arms of the Pope, of the Prince, and 
of the Vicar. And thus was instituted the Feast of the 
Maries, which was called noble and famous because the 
people from all round came together to behold it. And it 
was celebrated in this manner." The account which follows 
is somewhat prolix; but its substance is, briefly, that twelve 
maidens were elected, two for each division of the city; and 
that it was decided by lot which contrada, or quarter of the 



284 . VENICE 

town, should provide them with dresses. This was done at 
enormous expense, one contrada contending with another; 
and even the jewels of the treasury of St. Mark being lent for 
the occasion to the " Maries," as the twelve damsels were 
called. They, being thus dressed with gold, and silver, and 
jewels, went in their galley to St. Mark's for the Doge, who 
joined them with the Signory, and went first to San Pietro 
di Castello to hear mass on St. Mark's Day, the 31st of 
January, and to Santa Maria Formosa on the 2nd of 
February, the intermediate day being spent in passing in 
procession through the streets of the city, " and sometimes 
there arose quarrels about the place they should pass through, 
for every one wanted them to pass by his house." 

But whatever doubt attaches to the particular circum- 
stances of its origin, there is none respecting the splendour of 
the festival itself, as it was celebrated for four centuries after- 
wards. We find that each contrada spent from 800 to IOOO 
zecchins in the dress of the " Maries" entrusted to it; but 
I cannot find among how many contradas the twelve Maries 
were divided; it is also to be supposed that most of the ac- 
counts given refer to the later periods of the celebration of the 
festival. In the beginning of the Eleventh Century, the 
good Doge Pietro Orseolo II. left in his will the third of his 
entire fortune " per la Festa della Marie " ; and, in the 
Fourteenth Century, so many people came from the rest of 
Italy to see it, that special police regulations were made for 
it, and the Council of Ten was twice summoned before it 
took place. The expense lavished upon it seems to have in- 



THE BRIDES OF VENICE 285 

creased till the year 1379, when all the resources of the Re- 
public were required for the terrible war of Chiozza, and all 
festivity was for that time put an end to. The issue of the 
war left the Venetians with neither the power nor the disposi- 
tion to restore the festival on its ancient scale, and they seem 
to have been ashamed to exhibit it in reduced splendour. It 
was entirely abolished. 

As if to do away even with its memory, every feature of 
the surrounding scene which was associated with that festival 
has been in succeeding ages destroyed. With one solitary 
exception, there is not a house left in the whole Piazza of 
Santa Maria Formosa from whose windows the festa of the 
Maries has ever been seen : of the church in which they wor- 
shipped, not a stone is left, even the form of the ground and 
direction of the neighbouring canals are changed; and there 
is now but one landmark to guide the steps of the traveller to 
the place where the white cloud rested, and the shrine was 
built to St. Mary the Beautiful. Yet the spot is still worth 
his pilgrimage, for he may receive a lesson upon it, though a 
painful one. Let him first fill his mind with the fair images 
of the ancient festival, and then seek that landmark, the 
tower of the modern church, built upon the place where the 
daughters of Venice knelt yearly with her noblest lords; and 
let him look at the head that is carved on the base of the 
tower, still dedicated to St. Mary the Beautiful. 

A head, — huge, inhuman, and monstrous, — leering in 
bestial degradation, too foul to be either pictured or described, 
or to be beheld for more than an instant; for in that head is 



286 VENICE 

embodied the type of the evil spirit to which Venice was 
abandoned in the fourth period of her decline ; and it is well 
that we should see and feel the full horror of it on this spot, 
and know what pestilence it was that came and breathed upon 
her beauty, until it melted away like the white cloud from the 
ancient fields of Santa Maria Formosa. 



SEASONS OF VENICE 

JULIA CART WRIGHT 

EACH season has its special charm in Venice. Even 
the winter, which is decidedly the least preferable, is 
not without its advantages. The climate is decid- 
edly milder than that of Florence or Milan, and if you can 
secure comfortable quarters and a good stove to warm your 
room it is possible to spend the winter very pleasantly in 
Venice. The Riva is always warm on sunny days, and the 
Piazza loses nothing of its glory. Frost and ice have not 
hindered our artists from painting St. Mark's under these 
exceptional circumstances; and how beautiful it can be in a 
fall of snow Mr. Howells has told us in words that are a 
picture in themselves. Others, whose works are too well 
known and too recent to need mention, have shown us the 
fairness of hazy mornings in winter and the soft clearness of 
its twilight skies. The worst part is the absence of sun in 
the narrow colli, and the cutting winds which meet you at the 
corners, making you envy the scaldino which every woman 
carries and the brisk fires of the chestnut-roasters, who carry 
on a brisk trade in the alleys. But even sterner ordeals than 
these would be worth enduring for the sake of the burst of 
spring which follows close upon the darkest and dreariest 
winter-time. 

A few warm, bright February days, and the whole city 

287 



288 VENICE 

wakes from the long sleep in which it has lain torpid for the 
last weeks. Faces look out again from the windows, people 
stand talking to each other from the balconies of different 
houses, bird-cages are hung out again along the upper stories 
of the alleys, and the cats steal out on the roofs to bask under 
dormer windows or make themselves at home among the 
chimney-pots. The streets are full of shouting and singing 
and the canals are alive with boats. Soon a mantle of fresh 
green clothes the old buildings with new brightness, fig-trees 
and acacias burst into leaf, the young ivy runs riot among the 
carved stone-work of the ancient well and wreathes the rusty 
iron ring to which the gondola is moored. The market- 
places are full of hyacinths and early lilies; the vines at the 
traghetti on the Riva and Canalazzo put forth delicate shoots, 
and not an old wall or dark courtyard but has a bud or leaf to 
wave at the coming spring. 

This first gladness of early spring in Venice is charming, 
and better still the later months, when May ushers in the 
summer-time, with its long days and heavenly nights. But 
hard as it is to choose between the seasons, I am not sure that 
autumn is not the pleasantest time of all these. When here 
at home the cold north-west wind and sere leaves are already 
reminding us that the year is on the wane it is still summer 
in the lagoons. 

The great heats are over, it is true; a thunder-storm or 
two has cooled the air and added keener zest to the pleasures 
of the out-of-doors life which the Venetian loves. The gay 
Riva is gayer than ever. On evenings when the band plays 




RIO ALBRIZZI 



SEASONS IN VENICE 289 

the crowds on the Piazza overflow into the Piazzetta and 
stretch from the Royal Terrace all along the shore to the 
Public Gardens. Everywhere there is a fulness of life and 
colour. Now, if ever, it is the artists' time, and you meet 
them wherever you go, not only round St. Mark's and the 
Piazza, where they cluster like bees, but in the more remote 
quarters and distant canals, painting the fruit laden rafts or 
lingering to watch the sinking sun scatter clouds of fire over 
sky and sea and palace roofs. The sunsets are more splendid 
in September and October, I think, than at any time; and 
their glory lingers longer in our minds because we know they 
will soon be followed by those damp, white mists which rest 
in thick folds on the lagoon, hiding the scene from your eyes 
and sending their chilliness into your bones. 

Flowers are still plentiful, roses abound in the market- 
places ; you may still buy as many carnations as you can hold 
in both hands for a soldo. And better still, the fruit season 
is at its height, and brings a new wealth of colour into the 
narrowest streets and most desolate squares. Earlier in the 
year you have had the cherries and the strawberries ; all the 
winter there were pyramids of oranges and lemons, and cart- 
loads of chestnuts, but now you have black and white grapes 
and purple figs, and scarlet tomatoes and pomegranates, and 
peaches, and apples and pears in countless profusion. At 
every corner of the Riva stalls and booths are set up laden 
with fruit of a thousand hues; at every turn of the streets 
you see the dark-green water-melons — Zucchi santi — which 
appear to form the chief food of the poorer classes at this 



290 VENICE 

season. You pass a fruiterer's shop in some narrow lane and 
see them lying in a great heap under the picture of a Ma- 
donna, with a tiny oil-lamp burning in her honour and 
throwing a hundred sparkles into the rippling water below. 
A step or two further on and you find a dozen of the same 
round green balls, tumbled together in the archway of a bridge 
on the edge of the canal, while a ragged beggar-boy with a 
Murillo face and thick crop of curly hair is munching the 
biggest he can lay hands on. 

All the morning fruit-vendors, with baskets of figs and 
grapes on their heads, throng the narrow streets between the 
Merceria and the Rialto; at evenfall a stream of boats and 
rafts are seen slowly wending their way across the Giudecca 
or along the Riva, bringing the produce of their gardens from 
Mazzorbo, from Malamocco, and Pelestrina, to the Venetian 
market. They are among the most picturesque craft in 
Venice these market-boats, piled up with grapes and pome- 
granates and vegetables, and rowed by strong-limbed fisher- 
men with bronzed faces or black-eyed lads in torn blue hose 
and slouching hats. Sometimes a curly-headed child lies 
asleep in the stern, his head resting on a big cabbage; and I 
have a vivid remembrance of a brown-faced maiden, with a 
yellow handkerchief on her shoulders and a string of gold 
beads round her throat, who sat throned like a goddess 
among the fruit-baskets. The cloud-like masses of her wavy 
hair were gathered in loose tresses about her brows, her cheek 
rested thoughtfully on her hand and her dark eyes, turned 
with I know not what dream of yearning, towards the distant 



SEASONS IN VENICE 291 

islands tying in the pearly light of the far horizon, while the 
bark with its precious freight moved slowly over the green 
waters. It was a picture worthy of being painted by the 
hands of a Millet or a Costa. 

These boats are often to be seen on the outskirts of the 
city or in the lagoons of Murano and Chioggia; but if you 
want to study them at your leisure you must go to the Rialto 
at evening when the peasant women are setting up their stalls 
for the morrow's market, and boatmen, in striped blue and 
white jackets, are talking and gesticulating on the steps of 
the quay, as one by one the fruit-laden rafts come in. It is a 
lively and animated scene, and apart from the charm of colour 
and movement in the busy human life that is always stirring 
there, the Venetian market has a peculiar interest. For this 
is the heart and core of old Venice, the very centre of her once 
mighty life. The pavement now trodden by fruiterers and 
peasants was of old the Exchange where her merchant- 
princes traded. That church behind the market is S. Gia- 
como di Rialto, which dates back to the Ninth Century and 
the days when the first Venetians fled before King Pepin to 
found the Republic of St. Mark and the Doges fixed their 
seats at Riva alto. 



VENETIAN PAINTING 

HIPPO LYTE ADOLPHE TAINE 

THE Academy of Fine Arts contains a collection of 
the earliest painters. A large picture in compart- 
ments, of 1380, somewhat barbarously, shows their 
origin: here, as elsewhere, the new art is seen issuing from 
Byzantine traditions. It appeared late, much later than in 
precocious and intelligent Tuscany. We find, however, in 
the Fourteenth Century, a Semitecolo and a Guariento, weak 
disciples of the school that Giotto founded at Padua; but in 
order to find the first national painters, we must come down 
to the middle of the following century. At this time, there 
lived in Murano a family of artists, the Vivarini. The 
eldest, Antonio, exhibits the rudiments of Venetian taste, such 
as old men with venerable beards, and bald heads, beautiful 
rosy or greenish draperies with melting tones; little angels, 
quite plump; and Madonnas with full cheeks. After him, 
his brother, Bartolomeo, undoubtedly instructed in the School 
of Padua, led painting for a short time towards hard relief 
and bony forms; but in him, as in the others, the feeling for 
rich colour is already visible. On leaving this antechamber 
of art we experienced a sensation that is not created by the 
similar rooms in Sienna and Florence; and this sensation is 
increased when we stand before the masters of this dim era, 
John Bellini and Carpaccio. 

292 



VENETIAN PAINTING 293 

It is evident that, while following a path of its own, 
Venetian painting developed as in the rest of Italy. It issued 
here, as elsewhere, from missals and mosaics and was at first 
in sympathy with purely Christian emotion ; then, by degrees, 
the feeling for beautiful human life introduced vigorous and 
healthy bodies taken from contemporary types into the altar- 
frames, and we wonder at the placid expressions and religious 
physiognomies on the blooming faces in which the youthful 
blood circulates and sustains innate temperament. This is 
the confluence of two spirits and two ages ; one, the Christian 
which is fading away; the other, the Pagan, which is in the 
ascendant. In Venetian art special traits are distinguished. 
The people are more closely copied from life and are less 
transformed by classic or mystic sentiment, not so pure as at 
Perugia, not so noble as at Florence: they are addressed 
more to the senses than to the mind or the heart; they are 
more quickly recognised as men and give greater pleasure to 
the eye. Strong and lively tones colour their muscles and 
their faces; living flesh is soft on their shoulders and on the 
thighs of little children; clear landscapes open into the dis- 
tance to make the deeper tints of the figure stand out; saints 
gather around the Virgin in a variety of attitudes unknown 
to the other primitive schools with their uniform processions. 
At the height of its fervour and faith, the national spirit, 
fond of diversity and joy, allows a smile to escape. Nothing 
is more striking in this respect than the eight pictures by Car- 
paccio of St. Ursula: all that we have spoken of is here and 
particularly the awkwardness of the mediaeval image-maker. 



294 VENICE 

He ignores half of the landscape and the nude: his rocks, 
bristling with trees, seem to have come from a psalter; fre- 
quently his trees look as if they were cut out of varnished 
sheet-iron ; his ten thousand martyrs crucified on a mountain 
are as grotesque as the figures of an old mystery-play; you 
perceive that he has never been to Florence, and that he has 
not studied natural objects with Paolo Uccello nor human 
members and muscles with Pollaiolo. On the other hand, 
we find in him the most chaste figures of the Middle Ages, 
and that extreme finish, that perfect sincerity, that flower of 
Christian conscientiousness which the following age, more 
sensual and rough, will trample upon in passion. The saint 
and her betrothed, with their flowing blonde hair, are grave 
and tender like legendary personages. At one time we see 
her asleep and hearing the announcement of her martyrdom 
from an angel; at another, kneeling with her husband to 
receive the benediction of the Pope ; at another, lifted in glory 
above a crowded field of heads. In still another picture, 
she appears with Saint Anne and two old saints who are em- 
bracing each other. One cannot imagine more peaceful and 
pious figures. St. Ursula, pale and gentle, her head slightly 
bent, holds in her charming hands a banner and a green palm. 
Her silken hair falls over the virginal blue of her long robe, 
and a royal mantle bright with gold enfolds her. She is 
indeed a saint, for the candour, humility and delicacy of the 
Middle Ages are perfectly expressed in her gesture and 
glance. Such is the age and such the country. These paint- 
ings portray interesting customs and rich decorations. The 



VENETIAN PAINTING 295 

artist, as his great successors did after him, displays architec- 
ture, textiles, vessels, lordly processions, magnificently orna- 
mented and lustrous robes, all somewhat out of proportion, 
but whose brilliancy and variety anticipate the work of the 
future, as an illuminated manuscript anticipates a picture. 

There are certain families of plants, the species of which 
are so closely allied that they resemble more than they 
differ from each other: such are the Venetian painters, not 
only the four celebrities Giorgione, Titian, Tintoret, and 
Veronese, but others less illustrious, Palma " il Vecchio " ; 
Bonifazio, Paris Bordone, Pordenone, and that host enu- 
merated by Ridolfi in his Lives, contemporaries, relatives, and 
successors of the great men, Andrea Vicentino, Palma " il 
Giovine," Zelotti, Bazzaco, Padovinano, Bassano, Schia- 
vone, Moretto, and many others. What first appeals to the 
eye is the general and common type ; the individual and per- 
sonal traits remain for a time in shadow. They have 
worked together and by turns in the Ducal Palace, but by 
the involuntary concord of their talents their pictures make 
an harmonious whole. 

At first our eyes are astonished ; with the exception of three 
or four halls, the apartments are low and small. The Hall of 
the Council of the Ten and those surrounding it x are gilded 
habitations, insufficient for the figures that dwell therein; 
but after a moment one forgets the habitation and sees only 
the figures. Power and voluptuousness blaze there unbridled 

1 Painted by Veronese and by Zellotti and Bazzaco under his 
direction. 



296 VENICE 

and superb. In the angles nude men, painted caryatides, 
jut out in such high relief that at the first glance one takes 
them for statues; a colossal breath swells their chests; their 
thighs and their shoulders writhe. On the ceiling, a Mercury, 
entirely nude, is almost a figure by Rubens, but of a more 
gross sensuality. A gigantic Neptune urges before him his 
sea-horses which plash through the waves; his foot presses 
the edge of his chariot; his enormous and ruddy body is 
turned backwards; he raises his conch with the joy of a 
bestial god; the salt wind blows through his scarf, his hair, 
and his beard; one could never imagine, without seeing it, 
such a furious elan, such an overflowing of animal spirits, such 
a joy of pagan flesh, such a triumph of free and shameless 
life in the open air and broad sunlight. What an injustice 
to limit the Venetians to the painting of merely happy scenes 
and to the art of simply pleasing the eye! They have also 
painted grandeur and heroism ; the mere energetic and active 
body has attracted them; like the Flemings, they have their 
colossi also. Their drawing, even without colour, is capable 
by itself of expressing all the solidity and all the vitality of 
the human structure. Look in this same hall at the four 
grisailles by Veronese — five or six women veiled or half-nude, 
all so strong and of such a frame that their thighs and arms 
would stifle a warrior in their embrace, and, nevertheless, 
their physiognomy is so simple or so proud that, despite their 
smile, they are virgins like Raphael's Venuses and Psyches. 
The more we consider the ideal figures of Venetian art, the 
more we feel the breath of an heroic age behind us. Those 



VENETIAN PAINTING 297 

great draped old men with the bald foreheads are the patri- 
cian kings of the Archipelago, Barberesque sultans who, trail- 
ing their silken simars, received tribute and order executions. 
The superb women in sweeping robes, bedizened and creased, 
are empress-daughters of the Republic, like that Catherina 
Cornaro from whom Venice received Cyprus. There are the 
muscles of fighters in the bronzed breasts of the sailors and 
captains; their bodies, reddened by the sun and wind, have 
dashed against the athletic bodies of janizaries; their turbans, 
their pelisses, their furs, their sword-hilts constellated with 
precious stones, — all the magnificence of Asia is mingled on 
their bodies with the floating draperies of antiquity and with 
the nudities of Pagan tradition. Their straight gaze is still 
tranquil and savage, and the pride and the tragic grandeur of 
their expression announce the presence of a life in which man 
was concentrated in a few simple passions, having no other 
thought than that of being master so that he should not be a 
slave, and to kill so that he should not be killed. Such is the 
spirit of a picture by Veronese which, in the Hall of the Coun- 
cil of the Ten, represents an old warrior and a young woman ; 
it is an allegory, but we do not trouble ourselves about the 
subject. The man is seated and leans forward, his chin upon 
his hand, with a savage air; his colossal shoulders, his arm, 
and his bare leg encircled with a knemis of lions' heads start 
out of his ample drapery; with his turban, his white beard, his 
thoughtful brow, and his traits of a wearied lion, he has the 
appearance of a Pacha who is tired of everything. She, with 
downcast eyes, places her hands upon her soft breast; her 



298 VENICE 

magnificent hair is caught up with pearls ; she seems a captive 
awaiting the will of her master, and her neck and bowed 
face are strongly enpurpled in the shadow that encircles 
them. 

Nearly all the other halls are empty; the paintings have 
been taken into an interior room. We go to find the curator 
of the Museum; we tell him in bad Italian that we have no 
letters of introduction, nor titles, nor any rights whatsoever 
to be admitted to see them. Thereupon he has the kindness 
to conduct us into the reserved hall, to lift up the canvases, 
one after the other, and to lose two hours in showing them 
to us. 

I have never had greater pleasure in Italy; these canvases 
are now before our eyes; we can look at them as near as we 
please^at oidr ease, and we are alone. There are some 
browned giants by Tintoret, with their skin wrinkled by the 
play of the muscles. Saint Andrew and Saint Mark, real 
colossi like those of Rubens. There is a Saint Christopher 
by Titian, a kind of bronzed and bowed Atlas with his four 
limbs straining to bear the weight of a world, and on his neck, 
by an extraordinary contrast, the tiny, soft, and laughing 
bambino, whose infantine flesh has the delicacy and grace of 
a flower. Above all there are a dozen mythological and 
allegorical paintings by Tintoret and Veronese, of such bril- 
liancy and such intoxicating fascination that a veil seems to 
fall from our eyes and we discover an unknown world, a 
paradise of delights situated beyond all imagination and all 
dreams. When the Old Man of the Mountain transported 



VENETIAN PAINTING 299 

into his harem his sleeping youths to render them capable of 
extreme devotion, doubtless it was such a spectacle that he 
furnished. 

Upon a coast at the margin of the infinite sea, serious 
Ariadne receives the ring of Bacchus, and Venus, with a 
crown of gold, has come through the air to celebrate their 
marriage. Here is the sublime beauty of bare flesh, such as 
it appears coming out of the water vivified by the sun and 
touched with shadows. The goddess is floating in liquid 
light and her twisted back, her flanks and her curves are 
palpitating half enveloped in a white, diaphanous veil. 
With what words can we paint the beauty of an attitude, a 
tone, or an outline? Who will describe the healthy and 
roseate flesh under the amber transparency of gauze? How 
shall we represent the soft plenitude of a living form and the 
curves of limbs which flow into the leaning body? Truly 
she is swimming in the light like a fish in its lake, and 
the air, filled with vague reflections, embraces and caresses 
her. 

Beside it are two young women, Peace and Plenty. 
With infinite delicacy Peace leans towards her sister; she is 
turning away and her head is in shadow, but she has the 
freshness of immortal youth. How luminous are their 
gathered tresses, yellow as the ripened wheat! Their legs 
and bodies are slightly deflected. One of them seems to be 
falling, and the curve of her moving body is adorable. No 
painter has appreciated so fully the yielding roundness, or 
arrested action so wonderfully. They are going to take a 



300 VENICE 

posture, or walk away; the eye and mind involuntarily 
supply the action. 

Still more animated and voluptuous is the coquetry of the 
group of Mercury and the Three Graces. All of them are 
leaning; for with Tintoret, a body is not living when its 
posture is motionless; the exhibition of a deflected figure 
adds a mobile grace to the general charm of beauty. One of 
the Graces, seated, extends her arms, and the light that falls 
on her thigh makes a part of her face, neck and breast glow 
against the indistinct purple shadow. Her sister, kneeling, 
with downcast eyes, clasps her hand; a long gauze scarf, 
fine as those silvery mists that illumine the fields at dawn, is 
twined about her waist and floats over her breast, the rosy 
tints of which are seen through it. In her other hand, she 
holds a blooming spray of flowers, the snowy whiteness of 
which contrasts with the purplish white of the rounded arm. 
The third, is lying at full length, in a tortuous pose, and the 
eye can embrace from neck to heel the superb framework of 
spine and hip. Wavy hair, tiny chin, rounded eyelids, 
slightly turned up nose, delicate ears like shells of mother-of- 
pearl, — her whole countenance expresses a joyous, half- 
malicious, archness ; one would call her a bold courtesan. 

These are the traits by which Tintoret is recognised: a 
certain roughness and violence, strong colours, unconstrained 
attitudes, and virile nudity. Veronese has more silvery and 
roseate tones, gentler figures, lighter shadows and more lux- 
urious and restful decorations. Near a broken column a large 
and noble woman, Industry, seated by Innocence, is weaving 



VENETIAN PAINTING 301 

an aerial tissue; her laughing eyes are turned towards the 
blue of the sky, her crimped blonde hair is full of light; her 
half-opened mouth is a pomegranate; a vague smile allows 
her pearly teeth to be seen; and the atmosphere that sur- 
rounds her has the roseate hue of a brilliant dawn. The 
other, in an unstudied attitude, leans over her little lamb ; the 
silvery reflections of her silken drapery glisten around her; 
her head is in shadow; but the blushing dawn illumines her 
lips, her ear and her cheek. 

Such figures cannot be described; one could never have 
imagined that such poetry could exist in clothing and adorn- 
ment. In another picture by Veronese, Venice, the Queen, 
is seated on a throne between Peace and Justice ; her robe of 
white silk embroidered with golden lilies undulates over a 
mantle of ermine and scarlet ; her arm, her delicate hand and 
her curving dimpled fingers rest their satin whiteness and 
their soft serpentine contours on the lustrous robe. The face 
is in shadow — a half shadow dewy with bluish, palpable at- 
mosphere which enlivens the carmine lips ; the lips are verit- 
able cherries, and all this shadow is relieved by the high 
lights on the hair, by the soft gleams of the pearls on the 
neck and in the ears, and by the scintillations of the diadem 
whose jewels seem to be magical eyes. She smiles with an air 
of regal and beaming benignity, like a flower happy in the 
opening of its petals. Near her, Peace, is bowing so low 
that she is almost falling; her skirt of yellow silk embossed 
with red flowers is carelessly gathered into folds beneath the 
richest of violet mantles; strands of pearls are wound about 



302 VENICE 

her light tresses beneath her white veil; and what a divine 
little ear she has ! 

There is another picture, still more celebrated, The Rape of 
Europa. For brilliancy, fancy, refinement and extraordinary 
invention in colour, it has no equal. The reflection of the 
foliage overhead bathes the whole picture with an aqueous, 
greenish tone; it even tints Europa's garment; she, arch and 
languishing, seems almost a figure of the Eighteenth Century. 
This is one of the works in which through the combination 
and subtlety of tones, a painter surpasses himself, forgets his 
audience and is lost in the unexplored regions of his art; for, 
forsaking all known rules, he finds, beyond the common 
every-day world, harmonies, contrasts and strange successes, 
beyond all verisimilitude. Rembrandt produced a similar 
work — with his Night Watch. You must look upon it and 
be silent. 

In attempting to picture Titian, we imagine a happy man, 
" the happiest and the healthiest of his species, Heaven 
having bestowed upon him nothing but favours and felici- 
ties," the first among his rivals, visited in his house by the 
Kings of France and Poland, a favourite of the Emperor, 
of Philip II., of the Doges, of Pope Paul III., of all the 
Italian princes, created a knight and a count of the Empire, 
overwhelmed with orders, liberally paid, pensioned and 
worthily enjoying his good fortune. He kept house in great 
state, dressed himself splendidly, and entertained at his table 
cardinals, lords, the greatest artists and the ablest writers of 
his day. Around him, beauty, taste, cultivation and talent 



VENETIAN PAINTING 303 

reflect back upon him, as if from a mirror, the brightness of 
his own genius. His brother, his son Orazio, his two cousins 
Cesare and Fabrizio, and his relative Marco di Titiano, are 
all excellent painters. His daughter, Lavinia, dressed as 
Flora, with a basket of fruit on her head, supplies him with a 
model of fresh complexion and ample form. His talent flows 
on like a great river in its bed; nothing disturbs its course 
and its own increase is sufficient ; like Leonardo and Michel- 
angelo, he sees nothing outside of his art. 

We can see at the Academy the two extremes of his develop- 
ment, his last picture, a Descent from the Cross, finished by 
Palma the younger, and one of his early pictures, a Visitation, 
which he doubtless painted on leaving the school of John 
Bellini. An immense painting of his youth, The Presentation 
of the Virgin, shows with what boldness and ease he enters 
almost at the first expression of his genius upon the career 
which he is to pursue to the last. 

In seeking for the principal trait which distinguishes him 
from his neighbours, we find that it is simplicity; by not 
refining on colour, action and types, he obtains powerful 
effects with colour, action and types. Such is the character- 
istic of his greatly celebrated Assumption. A reddish, pur- 
plish and intense tint envelops the entire picture; it is a 
most vigorous colour, and by its means a kind of healthful 
energy breathes through the whole painting. Below are the 
apostles leaning and seated, nearly all with their heads raised 
to Heaven and bronzed like the Adriatic sailors. Their hair 
and beards are black ; an intense shadow hides their faces ; the 



304 VENICE 

sombre ferruginous tint hardly indicates their flesh. One of 
them, in the centre, in a brown cloak, almost disappears in 
the darkness, which seems darker on account of the surround- 
ing brightness. Two blood red draperies are contrasted 
with two large green cloaks. It is all a confused commotion 
of writhing arms, muscular shoulders, impassioned heads, and 
flowing draperies. Overhead, midway in air, the Virgin 
ascends in glory, brilliant as the vapour of a furnace. She is 
of their race, strong and healthy, without exaltation, without 
a mystic smile, and proudly enveloped in her red robe and blue 
mantle. The material assumes a thousand folds from the 
motion of her superb body; her attitude is athletic, her ex- 
pression grave, and the flat tone of her face comes out in full 
relief against the flaming brilliancy of the aureole. At her 
feet, extending over the entire space, is displayed a dazzling 
ring of young angels, whose fair and rosy flesh traversed by 
purple shadows contributes the brightest bloom of humanity as 
a contrast to the energetic tones and forms. Two of them 
have left the others and come forward to sport in full light, 
their infantile forms revelling in the air with charming ease. 
Venetian art centres in this work and perhaps reaches its 
climax in it. 



VENICE AND TINTORETTO 

JOHN RICHARD GREEN 

THE fall of Venice dates from the League of Cam- 
bray ; but her victory over the crowd of her assail- 
ants was followed by half a century of peace and 
glory such as she had never known. Her losses on the main- 
land were in reality a gain, enforcing as they did the cessa- 
tion of that policy of Italian aggression which had eaten like 
a canker into the resources of the State, and drawn her from 
her natural career of commerce and aggrandisement on the 
sea. If the political power of Venice became less, her po- 
litical influence grew greater than ever. The statesmen of 
France, of England, and of Germany studied in the cool, grave 
school of her Senate. We need only turn to Othello to 
find reflected the universal reverence for the wisdom of her 
policy and the order of her streets. No policy, however wise, 
could, indeed, avert her fall. The Turkish occupation of 
Egypt, and the Portuguese discovery of a sea route round the 
Cape of Good Hope, were destined to rob the Republic of 
that trade with the East which was the life-blood of its com- 
merce. But, though the blow was already dealt, its effects 
were for a time hardly discernible. On the contrary, the ac- 
cumulated wealth of centuries poured itself out in an almost 
riotous prodigality. A new Venice, a Venice of loftier 
palaces, of statelier colonnades, rose under Palladio and San- 

305 



306 VENICE 

sovino along the line of its canals. In the deep peace of the 
Sixteenth Century, a peace unbroken even by religious 
struggles (for Venice was the one State exempt from the 
struggle of the Reformation), literature and art won their 
highest triumphs. The press of the Aldi gave for the first 
time the masterpieces of Greek poetry to Europe. The 
novels of Venice furnished plots for our own drama, and 
became the origin of modern fiction. Painting reached its 
loftiest height in Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto and Paul 
Veronese. 

The greatest of colourists sprung from a world of colour. 
Faded, ruined as the city is now, the frescoes of Giorgione 
swept from its palace fronts by the sea-wind, its very gon- 
doliers bare and ragged, the glory of its sunsets alone remain 
vivid as of old. But it is not difficult to restore the many- 
hued Venice out of which its painters sprung. There are 
two pictures by Carpaccio in the Accademia which bring back 
vividly its physical aspect. The scene of the first, the 
Miracle of the Patriarch of Grado, as it is called, lies on the 
Grand Canal, immediately in front of the Rialto. It is the 
hour of sunset, and dark-edged clouds are beginning to fleck 
the golden haze of the west which still arches over the broken 
sky-line, roof and turret, and bell-tower, and chimneys of 
strange fashion with quaint conical tops. The canal lies 
dusk in the eventide, but the dark surface throws into relief a 
crowd of gondolas and the lithe glowing figures of their 
gondoliers. The boats themselves are long and narrow as 
now, but without the indented prora which has become uni- 



VENICE AND TINTORETTO 307 

versal ; the sumptuary law of the Republic has not yet robbed 
them of colour, and instead of the present " coffin " we see 
canopies of gaily-hued stuffs supported on four light pillars. 
The gondolier, himself, is commonly tricked out in almost 
fantastic finery; red cap, with long golden curls flowing 
down over the silken doublet, slashed hose, the light dress 
displaying those graceful attitudes into which the rower 
naturally falls. On the left side of the canal, its white 
marble steps are crowded with figures of the nobler Venetian 
life; a black robe here and there breaking the gay variety of 
golden and purple and red and blue; while in the balcony 
above a white group of clergy, with golden candlesticks tower- 
ing overhead, are gathered round the demoniac whose cure 
forms the subject of the picture. 

But the most noteworthy point in it is the light it throws 
on the architectural aspect of Venice at the close of the Fif- 
teenth Century. On the right the houses are wholly of 
Mediaeval type, the flat marble-sheeted fronts pierced with 
trefoil-headed lights; one of them, splendid with painted 
arabesques, dipping at its base into the very waters of the 
canal, and mounting up to inwreathe in intricate patterns 
the very chimneys of the roof. The left is filled by a palace 
of the early Renaissance; but the change of architectural 
style, though it has modified the tone and extent of colour, is 
far from dismissing it altogether. The flat pilasters which 
support the round arches of its base are sheeted with a deli- 
cately tinged marble ; the flower work of their capitals and 
the mask inclosed within it are gilded like the continuous 



308 VENICE 

billet moulding which runs round in the hollow of each arch ; 
while the spandrils are filled in with richer and darker mar- 
bles, each broken with a central medallion of gold. The use 
of gold, indeed, seems a " note " of the colouring of the early 
Renaissance; a broad band of gold wreathes the two rolls 
beneath and above the cornice, and lozenges of gold light up 
the bases of the light pillars in the colonnade above. In 
another picture of Carpaccio, the Dismissal of the Ambas- 
sadors, one sees the same principles of colouring extended 
to the treatment of interiors. The effect is obtained partly 
by the contrast of the lighter marbles with those of deeper 
colour or with porphyry, partly by the contrast of both with 
gold. Everywhere, whether in the earlier buildings of 
Mediaeval art or in the later efforts of the Renaissance, 
Venice seems to clothe itself in robes of Oriental splendour, 
and to pour over Western art before its fall the wealth and 
gorgeousness of the East. 

Of the four artist-figures who — in the tradition of Tin- 
toretto's picture — support this " Golden Calf " of Venice, 
Tintoretto himself is the one specially Venetian. Giorgione 
was of Castel Franco. Titian came from the mountains of 
Cadore; Paolo from Verona. But Jacopo Robusti, the 
" little dyer," the tintoretto, was born, lived, and died in 
Venice. His works, rare elsewhere, crowd its churches, its 
palaces, its galleries. Its greatest art-building is the shrine 
of his faith. The school of San Rocco has rightly been styled 
by Mr. Ruskin " one of the three most precious buildings in 
the world " ; it is the one spot where all is Tintoretto. Few 



VENICE AND TINTORETTO 309 

contrasts are at first sight more striking than the contrast be- 
tween the building of the Renaissance which contains his forty 
masterpieces, and the great Mediaeval church of the Frari 
which stands beside it. But a certain oneness, after all, links 
the two buildings together. The friars had burst on the 
caste spirit of the Middle Age, its mere classification of brute 
force, with the bold recognition of human equality which 
ended in the socialism of Wyclif and the Lollards. Tin- 
toretto found himself facing a new caste-spirit in the Renais- 
sance, a classification of mankind found on aesthetic refine- 
ment and intellectual power; and it is hard not to see in the 
greatest of his works a protest as energetic as theirs for the 
common rights of men. Into the grandeur of the Venice 
about him, her fame, her wealth, her splendour, none could 
enter more vividly. He rises to his best painting, as Mr. 
Ruskin has observed, when his subjects are noble — doges, 
saints, priests, senators clad in purple and jewels and gold. 
But Tintoretto is never quite Veronese. He cannot be untrue 
to beauty, and the pomps and glories of earth are beautiful to 
him; but there is a beauty too in earth, in man himself. The 
brown, half naked gondolier lies stretched on the marble 
steps which the doge, in one of his finest pictures, has as- 
cended. It is as if he had stripped off the stately robe and 
ducal cap and shown the soul of Venice in the bare child of 
the lagoons. The " want of dignity " which some have cen- 
sured in his scenes from the Gospels is in them just as it is in 
the Gospels themselves. Here, as there, the poetry lies in the 
strange, unearthly mingling of the commonest human life 



310 VENICE 

with the sublimest divine. In his Last Supper, in San 
Giorgio Maggiore, the apostles are peasants; the low, mean 
life of the people is there, but hushed and transfigured by 
the tall standing figure of the Master, who bends to give 
bread to the disciple by his side. And above and around 
crowd in the legions of Heaven, cherubim and seraphim 
mingling their radiance with the purer radiance from the halo 
of their Lord ; while amidst all this conflict of celestial light 
the twinkling candles upon the board burn on, and the damsel 
who enters bearing food, bathed as she is in the very glory 
of Heaven, is busy, unconscious— a serving maid, and nothing 
more. 

The older painters had seen something undivine in man; 
the colossal mosaic, the tall unwomanly Madonna, expressed 
the sense of the Byzantine artist that to be divine was to be 
inhuman. The Renaissance, with little faith in God, had faith 
in man but only in the might and beauty and knowledge of 
man. With Tintoretto the common life of man is ever one 
with Heaven. This was the faith which he flung on " acres 
of canvas " as ungrudgingly as apostle ever did, toiling and 
living as apostles lived and toiled. This was the faith he 
found in Old Testament and New, in saintly legend or in 
national history. In The Annunciation at San Rocco a 
great bow of angels streaming either way from the ethereal 
dove sweeps into a ruined hut, a few mean chairs its only 
furniture, the mean plaster dropping from the bare brick 
pilasters ; without, Joseph at work unheeding, amidst piles of 
worthless timber flung here and there. So, in The Adora- 



VENICE AND TINTORETTO 311 

tion of the Magi, the mother wonders with a peasant's 
wonder at the jewels and gold. Again, The Massacre of 
the Innocents is one wild, horror-driven rush of pure 
motherhood, reckless of all in its clutch at its babe. So, in 
the splendour of his Circumcision, it is from the naked 
child that the light streams on the high-priest's brow, on the 
mighty robe of purple and gold held up by stately forms like 
a vast banner behind him. The peasant mother to whose 
poorest hut that first stir of child life has brought a vision of 
angels, who has marvelled at the wealth of precious gifts 
which a babe brings to her breast, who has felt the sword 
piercing her own bosom also as danger threatened it, on 
whose mean world her child has flung a glory brighter than 
glory of earth, is the truest critic of Tintoretto. 

What Shakespeare was to the national history of England 
in his great series of historic dramas, his contemporary, Tin- 
toretto was to the history of Venice. It was, perhaps, from 
an unconscious sense that her annals were really closed that 
the Republic began to write her history and her exploits in 
the series of paintings which covers the walls of the Ducal 
Palace. Her apotheosis is like that of the Roman emperors ; 
it is when death has fallen upon her that her artists raise her 
into a divine form, throned amid heavenly clouds, and 
crowned by angel hands with the laurel wreath of victory. 
It is no longer St. Mark who watches over Venice; it is 
Venice herself who bends from Heaven to bless boatmen and 
Senator. In the divine figure of the Republic with which 
Tintoretto filled the central cartoon of the Great Hall every 



312 VENICE 

Venetian felt himself incarnate. His figure of Venice in 
the Senate Hall is yet nobler; the blue sea-depths are cleft 
open, and strange ocean shapes wave their homage, and yet 
more unearthly forms dart up with tribute of coral and pearls 
to the feet of the sea queen as she in the silken state of the 
time with the divine halo around her. But if from this pic- 
ture in the roof the eye falls suddenly on the fresco which 
fills the close of the room, we can hardly help reading the 
deeper comment of Tintoretto on the glory of the State. The 
Sala del Consiglio is the very heart of Venice. In the 
double row of plain seats running round it sat her nobles; 
on the raised dai's at the end, surrounded by the graver 
senators, sat her duke. One long fresco occupies the whole 
wall above the ducal seat ; in the background the blue waters 
of the lagoon, with the towers and domes of Venice rising 
from them; around, a framework of six bending saints; in 
front, two kneeling doges in full ducal robes, with a black 
curtain of clouds between them. The clouds roll back to 
reveal a mighty glory, and in the heart of it the livid figure of 
a dead Christ taken from the Cross. Not one eye of all the 
nobles gathered in council could have lifted itself from the 
figure of the doge without falling on the figure of the dead 
Christ. Strange as the conception is, it is hard to believe that 
in a mind so peculiarly symbolical as that of Tintoretto the 
contrast could have been without a definite meaning. And if 
this be so, it is a meaning that one can hardly fail to read in 
the history of the time. The brief interval of peace and glory 
had passed away ere Tintoretto's brush had ceased to toil. 



VENICE AND TINTORETTO 313 

The victory of Lepanto had only gilded that disgraceful sub- 
mission to the Turk which preluded the disastrous struggle 
in which her richest possessions were to be wrested from the 
Republic. The terrible plague of 1576 had carried off 
Titian. Twelve years after Titian, Paul Veronese passed 
away. Tintoretto, born almost at its opening, lingered till the 
very close of the century to see Venice sinking into power- 
lessness and infamy and decay. May not the figure of the 
dead Christ be the old man's protest against a pride in which 
all true nobleness and effort had ceased to live, and which 
was hurrying to so shameful a fall ? 



^r 



FLOODS IN THE CITY 

HORATIO F. BROWN 

HE floods in the city have a different cause from 
those which desolate the mainland. The sea and 

•**- the wind are responsible for them, and not the 
continual pour of rain upon the Alps. No doubt, before the 
rivers — the Piave, the Sile, and the Brenta — were canalised, 
and their mouths diverted from the lagoons into the open sea, 
a flood on the mainland would mean high water in Venice; 
but now the principal author of a flood in the city is " that 
son of a dog, the sirocco." A heavy wind blowing up the 
Adriatic for two days, and sending a turbid sea rolling on the 
sands of the Lido, virtually blocks the mouths by which the 
tidal waters escape from the lagoons into the open. The 
down-going tide cannot pass out till it has lost its hour for 
falling, and begins to turn and rise again. Then it comes 
sweeping in before the wind, swirling round the point by 
Sant' Elena and the public gardens, streaming along the 
curve by the Riva degli Schiavoni, dividing at the point of 
the Dogana, where half the grey-green flood pours up the 
Grand Canal, and half fills the wider Giudecca from marge 
to marge. 

The floods usually take place in the morning. As one 
opens the window a blast of warm, moist air streams into the 
room, wetting all the walls, and standing in drops on the 

3i4 



FLOODS IN THE CITY 315 

scagliolo pavement; the air is thick and heavy, and charged 
with salt sea-spray ; and far off, above the roofs of the houses, 
their reigns a continual booming noise, unremitting and im- 
pressive in its pervasiveness — it is the roar of the sea on the 
Lido, two miles or more away. Then the small canal below 
the window begins to feel the incoming tide. The chips of 
hay or of wood, the cabbage-stalks and scraps of old matting, 
move uneasily, as if in doubt which way they are to go ; then, 
with a final turn on their pivots, they yield to the current and 
sweep away towards the Giudecca. The colour of the 
water changes to a pale pea-green, not quite clear, but looking 
as if it had come fresh from the sea. Steadily the tide flows 
faster and faster under the bridge, and the market men and 
gondoliers secure their boats to the posts. So it goes on for an 
hour or more till the jade-coloured flood has nearly brimmed 
to the edge of the fondamenta, but not yet overflowed it. 
Then the water begins to appear in the calle; it comes well- 
ing up through every drain-hole and between the flags of the 
pavement, bubbling like a little geyser and making a low 
gurgling noise; for the sea begins to flood Venice under the 
pavements, and not over the fondamente, which are usually 
higher than the streets. Presently the baker puts out a board 
to serve as a bridge for his customers; but soon the water 
from the canal has joined that in the calle; the bridge ceases 
to be of use, and floats idly away. Presently the sea rises; 
it creeps under the large door of the palace, and swells the 
little pools that are bubbling up in the courtyard, and flows 
right out by the great gates on the Grand Canal, converting 



316 VENICE 

the whole cortile into a lake. Then the first boat passes 
down the calle stopping at the shop doors to pick up fares, and 
bare-legged men offer their services as porters from the high 
bridge steps to the upper end of the street, which is still dry. 
Indeed, the flood is an excuse for the display of bare legs, and 
half the population of the quarter are tucked above the knee. 
All the windows are full of women and children, laughing at 
the traffic below — laughing at the thrifty, high-kilted house- 
wife, out for her marketing, who grudges a centisimo for the 
boat and shrinks from the porterage; laughing at the thin- 
shod dandy, whose hat was blown off and umbrella turned 
inside out, and who looks disgust at the wind; laughing at 
the heavy man who nearly brings himself and his beaver prone 
upon the water. Then suddenly, without a moment's warn- 
ing, there is a dazzling flash of lightning, a rattling peal; 
every face disappears from the windows, and all the green 
shutters go to with a bang. 

The streets are full of people, most of them bound for the 
Piazza to see the fun. There is laughter and jesting every- 
where, and the impression of a capital joke in bare legs and 
top boots; the people get their amusement out of it all, 
though the basements of their houses are soaking and their 
winter firewood slowly taking in the water. Here is one 
woman marching along through the flood, serenely regard- 
less of indiscreet disclosure; another in a pair of high top 
boots, lent by her friend, who stands on the bridge and looks 
on. The Piazza is one large lake from the door of Saint 
Mark's up to the raised walk that runs under the colonnades. 



FLOODS IN THE CITY 317 

and right down the Piazzetta out into the stormy lagoon. 
Under the colonnades a crowd promenades or stands in the 
arches watching the boats, the gondolas, sandolos and barche, 
that charge two centisimi for a row. The bright mosaics of 
Saint Mark's jaqade, and the long lines of the two Procuratie 
seem to gain in colour and in form as thy rise right up from 
this level of the sea. The doves go wheeling about in the 
upper air, half in alarm at the unwonted sight below them. 
Hard by the two granite columns at the sea end of the Piaz- 
zetta, some speculators have fixed a rickety wooden bridge 
two planks wide, that leads to the Ponte della Paglia; but 
the wind is so high that only a venturous few attempt the 
passage, and more, it would seem, to keep the game alive 
than from any pressure of business, they are greeted with 
applause or laughter as they make the transit in safety or lose 
their hats on the way. Presently the water begins to go down, 
and then comes a regular stampede of all the boats in the 
Piazza, for once caught there, it is a serious matter to lift a 
gondola down to the sea. In a moment the bridge is broken 
up, and the boats, in extricable confusion, come stream- 
ing down the Piazzetta, bumping together or now and then 
giving an ominous crunch against the flags. There is 
laughter, encouragement, and help from the on-looking 
crowd. Any excuse serves for some one to rush into the 
water: a hand to this gondola, a lift to that barchetta. In a 
very short space the Piazza is empty once more. The water 
falls fast, leaving patches of green seaweed on the stones. 
Out towards San Giorgio and the gardens a heavy haze hangs 



3 i8 VENICE 

in the sky; a wind laden with foam drives inward from 
the sea. There is the perpetual boom of the Adriatic on the 
beach, and the hot breath of the sirocco sweeping over 
the heaving grey expanse of water that breaks in waves on 
the marble steps and foundations of the Piazzetta. 



VENETIAN MELANCHOLY 

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 

IT is one of those evenings charged with an inexplicable 
melancholy, what the French call " indicible tristesse" 
Outside upon the broad canal of the Giudecca, fog- 
horns are calling from sea-going steamers, and now and then 
the weird sting of a siren, like a writhing sound-serpent or a 
banshee's cry, shivers from nowhere, nowhither, through the 
opaque mist. Is it from our nerves, or from something al- 
tered and set wrong in Nature, some unwholesome wind, 
some depression preceding thunderstorm or earthquake, that 
this sense of a profound gloom settles down quite un- 
expectedly? Then all life seems wasted: the heart is full of 
hidden want ! We know not what we desire ; but an atmos- 
phere of wistfulness is everywhere. What we have achieved, 
what we possess, shows dull, flat and unprofitable. Only 
what we have not, or lies beyond the scope of possibilities, 
gleams before the soul's gaze like a bright particular star. 

November I. There has been a succession of sad sumptu- 
ous autumn days, the lagoons asleep, gently heaving in long 
undulations beneath the immense dome of varied greys, mod- 
ulating from the warmest violets to the coldest slaty hues; 
mournful pageants of sunset, hanging roses and flakes of crim- 
son fire over the whole expanse of heaven's pavilion. 

November 2. We go out in the gondola, Angelo, Vittorio 
3i9 



3 20 VENICE 

and I, every afternoon, and moor ourselves to a palo beyond 
the Porto del Lido, there where the new breakwater is being 
made, and one looks toward the open sea with flocks of many- 
tinted fishing boats in the far offing. Here we sit and smoke 
and talk a little. I read, and wine from Poggio Gherardo 
gurgles through the thin neck of a Tuscan flask. The ex- 
panse of water is quite smooth, with just an indefinable sense 
of ebb and flow. All phases of the sky are repeated on the 
glassy surface; and after the long windless days we have 
lately been enjoying, the water itself has run crystal clear. 
One can look right down to the grassy weeds and to the bot- 
tom; and where light glints through upon an oar or whit- 
ened stake, gemmy patches of aquamarine tints (such as 
Tiepolo loved to splash for highest colour-accents on his 
blues), yield infinite if tranquil pleasure to the eye. Then 
comes the sunset: and all the furnace of the west has long 
since smouldered into ashes above Padua before we regain our 
home on the Zattere. 

November 3. We rowed as usual to our palo, and let our- 
selves be lost, like a speck, in that immensity of sky and water. 
Not sea — there is little feeling of the true sea here. Only 
messages exchanged between the Adriatic and Venetian by 
incoming or outgoing vessels. Low lines of long shallow 
islands broken here and there by church towers and tufted 
with stunted trees, remind us that this is no more than an 
outlying piece of mainland, covered by sheets of brackish 
water. There is a peculiar melancholy in this advanced 
guard of the continent, where the rivers of the Alps and 



VENETIAN MELANCHOLY 321 

Lombardy are gradually gaining on the sea, depositing their 
silt through centuries. I remember experiencing the same 
sadness on the lagoons at Tunis, where Carthage has been 
utterly erased, as possibly Venice will be one day also. You 
forget the rival mistress of the world with Rome, and only 
feel the desert and the solemn expanse of lake. Towards 
evening rosy shoals of cloud float across the sky, and take a 
keener hue on the sheeny deeps beneath, while between the 
heavens and their reflections sail ponderous battalions of 
flamingoes making a third series of rose-tinted cloudlets. Mel- 
ancholy and gorgeous colour-richness are combined in a 
singular degree throughout the landscape of lagoons. 

November 4. I will try to catch the special note of a sun- 
set I saw yesterday from our customary station. Peculiar 
qualities of life and movement are given to these Venetian 
lagoons by the continual passage through them of con- 
siderable rivers, the Brenta and Sile. Also by the fact 
that there is a small tide in the Adriatic. It is not dead 
water like that of a land-locked lake, but water subject 
to complex conditions of influx and outflow of salt-cur- 
rents combined with the perpetual course of inland tor- 
rents debouching through channels delved by them in the 
soft mud of the basin at points of least resistance and eas- 
iest access to the gaps between the belting islands. The 
lagoon then though it in no way resembles the sea, has a 
character of change and varying motion which makes it inter- 
esting without disturbing its unrivalled excellence as a reflect- 
ing surface. 



322 VENICE 

The tide, at half-past three, was running out like a 
steady stream, making our moored boat throb with a 
rhythmic shudder seaward. Then came a pause, and then a 
different tremor. New shivers in a contrary direction 
thrilled the keel, and we felt that the pulse of the lagoon was 
turning landward. It is difficult to avoid shades of lan- 
guage appropriate to vital processes while speaking of this al- 
teration in the tide. How can we think of it as the mechanical 
effect of gravitation upon fluid masses, when we remember 
how much of animal and vegetable life over the whole of that 
huge area is waiting on the subtle changes? To the sense of 
weeds and molluscs, sponges, crustaceans, and worms, ebb 
and flow must be equivalent to the systole and diastole of a 
mighty heart. We wrong the logic of our heads perhaps, but 
we get closer to Nature by indulging mythological illusions, 
and making our nerves sensitive to what for these creatures 
are the conditions of existence. Then, too, have not we 
emerged from them, and does not, perhaps, their sympathy 
with natural and diurnal changes survive in all the operations 
of our sentient imagination? The sky was one vast dome 
of delicately graduated greys, dove-breasted, ashen, violet, 
blurred-blue, rose-tinted, tawny, all drenched and drowned in 
the prevailing tone of sea-lavender. The water heaving, un- 
dulating, swirling at no point stationary, yet without a ripple 
on its vitreous pavement, threw back those blended hues, 
making them here and there more flaky and distinct in vivid 
patches of azure or of crimson. Not very far away, waiting 
for a breeze to carry them toward Torcello, lay half a dozen 



VENETIAN MELANCHOLY 323 

fishing boats with sails like butterflies a-tremble on an open 
flower: red, orange, lemon, set by some ineffable tact of 
Nature just in the right place to heighten and accentuate her 
symphony of tender tints. The sun was nowhere visible. 
No last rays flamed from the horizon, illuminating, as they 
sometimes do, that fretwork of suspended vapours with a sud- 
den glory of mingled blood and fire. We knew that he had 
set, for a cindery pallor overspread the world; and we 
turned homeward, splashing the silent waters with the ca- 
dence of our oars. But soon, as though some celestial quarrel 
between planetary or sidereal powers had ended, and heaven 
were washed with tears of reconciliation and repentance, the 
roof of clouds dissolved into immeasurable air. Luna, just 
risen, full and radiant, sailed in a sky of brilliant blue. The 
colour was intense and omnipresent : so blue, so blue : bath- 
ing thin mists which lay along the face of the lagoon : tingeing 
pearly mackerel clouds lazily afloat above. White-sailed 
ships, like sheeted phantoms, swam past us through the twi- 
light. The churches of Venice, S. Giorgio, Redentore, 
Salute, loomed, large and dusky silhouettes, emergent from 
the clinging vapours. Whenever the moistened lead upon 
their roofs and cupolas caught moonlight, it shone with silver. 
The concave of the sky mirrored in the concave of the water 
formed one sphere of azure mystery, moving through which 
was like being in the heart of some pale milky sapphire. 
Only at intervals, along the quays, lamps, dilated into globes, 
with golden reflections sagging down along the bluish water, 
broke and gave value to the dominant chord. Deep-tongued 



324 VENICE 

bells from far and near thrilled the whole scene translating 
its motif of colour into congenial qualities of sound. 

November 5. Why do ye toil hither and thither upon 
paths laborious and peril-fraught? Seek what ye are seek- 
ing: but it is not there where ye are seeking it. Ye are 
seeking a life of blessedness in the realm of death. It is not 
there. Stirred to the depths by those miracles, my soul 
seemed to know what she was wanting, and at the same time 
knew that even to desire it was vanity; to possess it would 
be dust and ashes. The pains of thought, the sickness of the 
Soul, the thirst for things impossible, are soothed by commu- 
nion with Nature. What can be more tranquillising than 
this breadth of sea and sky, the cool caressing lisp of those 
inflowing waters, the simplicity of yonder overarching cloud- 
pavilion? The day is dying imperceptibly. There is no 
question of a melodramatic display of colour. The vapours 
of the plain already hide the sun's disc. I gaze forward into 
the profound blues of the eastern heavens. And then, with- 
out turning my head westward, I become aware that some 
change is taking place above the fields of Lombardy. For 
that vast gulf of blue, which erewhile was opaque and duP 
like indigo, is gradually growing transparent, warming int 
amethyst, assuming hues of iris, violet, and hyacinth. Fla' 
seems filtering down into it from the zenith. The will 
and acacia trees upon the shore of S. Erasmo are passing 
the dull green of distant foliage into the brilliancy of 
oberyl, the fervour of chrysophase, the pallucidity 
It is not easy to detach one's gaze from this specta 



VENETIAN MELANCHOLY 325 

turn I must and peer into the west. Between Fusiana and 
Malghera the cloud-canopy has lifted, leaving a blank space 
of sky above the buried sun. This is luminous with crimson, 
orange, citron, flecked with stationary lakes of molten gold: 
a great white planet swims suspended in their midst. The 
refraction of that light upon the eastern horizon caused the 
blues to blush. So, having fed my eyes with red and yellow 
fire, I turn again, and now the purples of the east, by contrast 
with those other hues, appear intolerable in their ardour and 
intensity of colour. The cold azure sucks our sense of vision 
into depths of incandescent fluor-spar: and just athwart the 
core of that cerulean pyre floats a barge piled high with hay, 
the sombre green of which has also caught the glow, and 
burns. 

November 6. There has been a total eclipse of the moon. 
We were returning after sunset from our accustomed post. 
The sun, this time, sank like a round vermilion ball into the 
plain of Padua. The sky was hard and clear. Like a flaw- 
less topaz the west shone, with all the buildings of the city 
cut out in solid shapes of purple darkness against that back- 
ground. There was no mystery, no illusion, except in the 
daffodils and saffrons of the heaving waterfloor. Behind S. 
Pietro di Castello peered up a little jagged notch of white 
light, like an abnormal planet splintered out of shape. This 
was the eclipsed moon rising. But the earth's shadow grad- 
ually passed away, and the azure splendours of that previous 
evening were renewed, pitched in a key of higher clarity. 

November 7. This summer of S. Martin is overpoweringly 



326 VENICE 

beautiful ; a gradual dying of the year in tranquil pomps and 
glowing pageants. Every evening on the lagoon brings a 
new spectacle of ethereal and subtly coloured loveliness. So 
musical, so melancholy, so far diviner, than the blare and 
glory of the springtime. It is infinitely sweet and sad, this 
whisper of the fading autumn bestowing all its stored-up 
passion and fruitage in dim twilight hours. Immeasurable 
breadth, unfathomable mystery, illimitable repose of coming 
slumber. I read in a book to-day that it must have taken 
one hundred millions of years to form the earth's crust, and 
the crust has only an average of twenty miles in depth. In- 
side, all is still and molten rock and raging gases in combus- 
tion. One hundred millions of years to form a thin surface 
of elastic stuff for plants, beasts, and men and cities to exist 
on. And of all that time the history of our race, ascertained 
by documents, has only occupied five thousand years at most. 

Ah ! what is man, and why does he disquietude his soul and 
think so much about his destiny? 

"Creatures of a day"? What is a man and what is a 
man not ? Dreaming so, I sweep along the jetty of S. Niccolo 
di Lido through the sunset, with Angelo in front and Vittorio 
upon the poop. We pass a laden boat. On the boat, erect, 
sturdily rowing, is a young man, whose face, fronting the 
mellow spaces of the west, seems in its perfect and peculiar 
beauty to be " the programme of all good." A whole life of 
exquisite emotion and superb energy expressed there. A 
God-created inimitable thing. A master-piece of Nature, to 
frame which all the rest seems made. I am a soul, he is a 



VENETIAN MELANCHOLY 327 

soul: we shall never meet: each of us has some incalculable 
doom, and neither of us knows what that doom is. What I 
really know is that in this intense momentary vision resides 
the most poignant of all stings to wake me into passionate in- 
difference to time and chance and change, the laws which 
clip me round and stifle me. It falls away and fades, and 
he becomes a memory which leaves an unextinguished smart. 
November 8. All those beautiful pomps and pageants have 
been again engulfed in sea-fog, and I listen this night to 
the complaining fret of boats moored close beneath my 
windows, the dreary hootings of sea-going vessels, the shrill, 
thin eldritch scream of sirens. Moments come in the 
hyper-sensitive life of artistic natures, come unbidden and un- 
caused, when we are assailed by desolate intimations of the 
inutility of all things, the vanity of our existence, the vision- 
ary fabric of the universe, the incomprehensibility of self, the 
continuous and irreparable flight of time — when our joys and 
sorrows, our passion and our shame, our endeavours to achieve 
and our inertia of languor, seem but a mocking film, an 
iridescent scum upon the treacherous surface of a black and 
bottomless abyss of horrible inscrutability. At these times, 
like Pascal, we fain would set a screen up to veil the ever- 
present gulf that yawns before our physical and mental organs 
of perception. Alas for those who, feeling the realities of 
beauty and emotion so acutely having such power at times to 
render them by words or forms for others, must also feel 
with poignant intensity the grim and transitory nature of the 
ground on which we tread, of the flesh and clothes us round, 



328 VENICE 

of the desires that fret our brains, the duties we perform, the 
thoughts that keep our will upon the stretch through months 
of unremunerative labour. 

It is easy to stigmatise these moods as morbid. It is clear 
that yielding to them would entail paralysis of energy, de- 
creptitude, disease. It is not certain that recording them 
serves any useful purpose. Yet they are real, a serious factor 
in the experience of sentient and reflective personalities. 
Duly counterpoised by strenuous activity and steady self- 
effectuation, they constitute for the artist and the thinker 
what might be compared to a " retreat " for the religious. 
They force a man to recognise his own incalculable littleness 
in the vast sum of things. 

They teach him to set slight store on his particular achieve- 
ment. They make him understand that seeming-bitter sen- 
tence of the Gospel, " Say, we are unprofitable servants, we 
have done that which was our duty to do." Also they have 
the minor value of dissipating vain glamours of fame or 
blame, of popular applause or public condemnation, of vulgar 
display and petty rivalries with others. Emerging from 
them, the man, made wiser and saner, proceeds to work at 
that which lieth nearest to his hand to do. 

Michelangelo, than whom none ever laboured with more 
single-hearted purpose and with haughtier constancy in his 
appointed field of art, professed a special dedication to the 
thought of death. 

" This thought," he said, " is the only one which makes us 
know our proper selves, which holds us together in the bond 



VENETIAN MELANCHOLY 329 

of our own nature, which saves us from being stolen away 
by kinsmen, friends, great men of parts, by avarice, ambition, 
and those other faults and vices which filch one from himself. 
Keep him distraught and dispersed, without permitting him 
to retire into himself and to reunite his scattered parts." 
Such then are the uses of what the world calls melancholy, 
" Sweet dainty melancholy." Thanksgiving to the places 
where moods like these are nobly, beautifully nurtured, and 
where their very presence in the soul is the purgation of its 
baser passions. 



AFTERNOON EXCURSIONS: SAN LAZ- 

ZARO—MALAMOCCO—FUSINA 

—THE LIDO 

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 

THE mornings are spent in study, sometimes among 
pictures, sometimes in the Marcian Library, or 
again in those vast convent chambers of the Frari, 
where the archives of Venice load innumerable shelves. The 
afternoons invite us to a further flight upon the water. Both 
sandolo and gondola await our choice, and we may sail or 
row, according as the wind and inclination tempt us. 

Yonder lies San Lazzaro, with the neat red buildings of 
the Armenian convent. The last oleander blossoms shine 
rosy pink above its walls against the pure blue sky as we 
glide into the little harbour. Boats piled with coal-black 
grapes block the landing-place, for the Padri are gathering 
their vintage from the Lido, and their presses run with new 
wine. Eustace and I have not come to revive memories of 
Byron — that curious patron saint of the Armenian con- 
vent — or to inspect the printing-press, which issues books of 
little value for our studies. It is enough to face the terrace, 
and linger half an hour beneath the low broad arches of the 
alleys pleached with vines, through which the domes and 
towers of Venice rise more beautiful by distance. 

33o 



AFTERNOON EXCURSIONS 331 

Malamocco lies considerably farther, and needs a full 
hour of stout rowing to reach it. Alighting there, we cross 
the narrow strip of land, and find ourselves upon the huge 
sea-wall — block piled on block — of Istrian stone in tiers 
and ranks, with cunning breathing-places for the waves to 
wreak their fury on and foam their force away in fretful 
waste. The very existence of Venice may be said to depend 
sometimes on these murazzi, which were finished at an im- 
mense cost by the Republic in the days of its decadence. 
The enormous monoliths which compose them had to be 
brought across the Adriatic in sailing-vessels. Of all the 
Lidi, that of Malamocco is the weakest; and here, if any 
where, the sea might effect an entrance into the lagoon. 
Our gondoliers told us of some places where the murazzi 
were broken in a gale or sciroccale, not very long ago. 
Lying awake in Venice, when the wind blows hard, one 
hears the sea thundering upon its sandy barrier, and blesses 
God for the murazzi. On such a night it happened once to 
me to dream a dream of Venice overwhelmed by water. I 
saw the billows roll across the smooth lagoon like a gigantic 
Eager. The Ducal Palace crumbled, and San Marco's 
domes went down. The Campanile rocked and shivered 
like a reed. And all along the Grand Canal the palaces 
swayed helpless, tottering to their fall, while boats piled 
high with men and women strove to stem the tide, and 
save themselves from those impending ruins. It was a mad 
dream, born of the sea's roar and Tintoretto's painting. 
But this afternoon no such visions are suggested. The sea 



332 VENICE 

sleeps, and in the moist autumn air we break tall branches of 
the seeded yellowing samphire from hollows of the rocks, 
and bear them homeward in a wayward bouquet mixed 
with cobs of Indian-corn. 

Fusina is another point for these excursions. It lies at 
the mouth of the Canal di Brenta, where the mainland ends 
in marsh and meadows, intersected by broad renes. In 
spring the ditches bloom with fleur-de-lys ; in autumn they 
take sober colouring from lilac daisies and the delicate sea- 
lavender. Scores of tiny plants are turning scarlet on the 
brown moist earth ; and when the sun goes down behind the 
Euganean hills, his crimson canopy of cloud reflected on 
these shallows, muddy shoals, and wilderness of matted 
weeds, converts the common earth into a fairyland of fab- 
ulous dyes. Purple, violet and rose are spread around us. 
In front stretches the lagoon, tinted with a pale light from 
the east, and beyond this pallid mirror shines Venice, — a 
long, low, broken line, touched with the softest roseate flush. 
Ere we reach the Giudecca on our homeward way, sunset 
has faded. The western skies have clad themselves in 
green, barred with dark fire-rimmed clouds. The Euga- 
nean hills stand like stupendous pyramids, Egyptian, solemn 
against a lemon space on the horizon. The far reaches of 
the lagoons, the Alps, and islands assume those tones of 
glowing lilac which are the supreme beauty of Venetian 
evening. Then, at last, we see the first lamps glitter on the 
Zattere. The quiet of the night has come. 

Words cannot be formed to express the endless varieties 



AFTERNOON EXCURSIONS 333 

of Venetian sunset. The most magnificent follow after 
wet stormy days, when the west breaks suddenly into a 
labyrinth of fire, when chasms of clear turquoise heavens 
emerge, and horns of flame are flashed to the zenith, and 
unexpected splendours scale the fretted clouds, step over 
step stealing along the purple caverns till the whole dome 
throbs. Or, again, after a fair day, a change of weather 
approaches, and high infinitely high, the skies are woven over 
with a web of half-transparent cirrus-clouds. These in the 
afterglow blush crimson, and through their rifts the depth 
of heaven is of a hard and gem-like blue, and all the water 
turns to rose beneath them. I remember one such evening 
on the way back from Torcello. We were well out at sea 
between Mazzorbo and Murano. The ruddy arches over- 
head were reflected without interruption in the waveless 
ruddy lake below. Our black boat was the only dark spot 
in this sphere of splendour. We seemed to hang suspended ; 
and such as this, I fancied, must be the feeling of an insect 
caught in the heart of a fiery-petaled rose. Yet not those 
melodramatic sunsets alone are beautiful. Even more ex- 
quisite, perhaps, are the lagoons, painted in monochrome of 
greys, with just one touch of pink upon a western cloud, 
scattered in ripples here and there on the waves below, re- 
minding us that day has passed and evening come. And 
beautiful again are the calm settings of fair weather, when 
sea and sky alike are cheerful, and the topmost blades of the 
lagoon grass, peeping from the shallows, glance like emer- 
alds from the surface. There is no deep stirring of the 



334 VENICE 

spirit in a symphony of light and colour; but purity, peace, 
and freshness make their way into our hearts. 

Of all these afternoon excursions, that to the Lido is 
most frequent. It has two points for approach. The more 
distant is the little station of San Nicoletto, at the mouth 
of the Porto. With an ebb-tide, the water of the lagoon 
runs past the mulberry gardens of this hamlet like a river. 
There is here a grove of acacia trees, shadowy and dreamy, 
above deep grass which even an Italian summer does not 
wither. The Riva is fairly broad, forming a promenade, 
where one may conjure up the personages of a century ago. 
For San Nicoletto used to be a fashionable resort before the 
other points of Lido had been occupied by pleasure-seekers. 
An artist even now will select its old-world quiet, leafy 
shade, and prospect through the islands of Vignole and Sant' 
Erasmo to snow-touched peaks of Antelao and Tofano, 
rather than the glare and bustle and extended view of 
Venice which its rival Sant' Elisabetta offers. 

But when we want a plunge into the Adriatic, or a stroll 
along smooth sands, or a breath of genuine sea-breeze, or a 
handful of horned poppies from the dunes, or a lazy half- 
hour's contemplation of a limitless horizon flecked with rus- 
set sails, then we seek Sant' Elisabetta. Our boat is left at 
the landing-place. We saunter across the island and back 
again. Antonio and Francesco wait and order wine, which 
we drink with them in the shade of the little osterias wall. 

A certain afternoon in May I well remember, for this 
visit to the Lido was marked by one of those apparitions 



AFTERNOON EXCURSIONS 335 

which are as rare as they are welcome to the artist's soul. 
I have always held that in our modern life the only real 
equivalent for the antique mythopoetic sense — that sense 
which enabled the Hellenic race to figure for themselves the 
powers of earth and air, streams and forests, and the presid- 
ing genii of places, under the forms of living human beings 
— is supplied by the appearance at some felicitous moment of 
a man or woman who impersonates for our imagination the 
essence of the beauty that environs us. It seems, at such a 
fortunate moment, as though we had been waiting for this 
revelation, although perchance the want of it had not been 
previously felt. Our sensations and perceptions test them- 
selves at the touchstone of this living individuality. The 
keynote of the whole music dimly sounding in our ears is 
struck. A melody emerges, clear in form and excellent in 
rhythm. The landscapes we have painted on our brain, 
no longer lack their central figure. The life proper to the 
complex conditions we have studied is discovered, and every 
detail, judged by this standard of vitality, falls into its right 
relations. 

I had been musing long that day and earnestly upon the 
mystery of the lagoons, their opaline transparencies of air 
and water, their fretful rising, and sudden subsidence into 
calm, the treacherousness of their shoals, the sparkle and 
the splendour of their sunlight. I had asked myself how 
would a Greek sculptor have personified the elemental deity 
of these salt-water lakes, so different in quality from the 
i^gean or Ionian sea? What would he find distinctive of 



336 VENICE 

their spirit? The Tritons of these shallows must be of other 
form and lineage than the fierce-eyed youth who blows his 
conch upon the curled crest of a wave, crying aloud to his 
comrades, as he bears the nymph away to caverns where the 
billows plunge in tideless instability. 

We had picked up shells and looked for sea-horses on the 
Adriatic shore. Then we returned to give our boatmen 
wine beneath the vine-clad pergola. Four other men were 
there, drinking and eating from a dish of fried fish set upon 
the coarse white linen cloth. Two of them soon rose and 
went away. Of the two who stayed, one was a large, 
middle-aged man; the other was still young. He was 
tall and sinewy, but slender, for these Venetians are rarely 
massive in their strength. Each limb is equally developed 
by the exercise of rowing upright, bending all the muscles 
to their stroke. Their bodies are elastically supple, with 
free sway from the hips and a mercurial poise upon the 
ankle. Stefano showed these qualities almost in exaggera- 
tion. The type in him was refined to its artistic perfection. 
Moreover, he was rarely in repose, but moved with a sin- 
gular brusque grace. A black broad-brimmed hat was 
thrown back upon his matted zazzera of dark hair tipped 
with dusty brown. This shock of hair, cut in flakes, and 
falling willfully, reminded me of the lagoon grass, when it 
darkens in autumn upon uncovered shoals, and sunset gilds 
its sombre edges. Silvery grey eyes beneath it gazed in- 
tensely, with compulsive effluence of electricity. It was the 
wild glance of a Triton. Short blonde mustache, dazzling 



AFTERNOON EXCURSIONS 337 

teeth, skin bronzed, but showing white and healthful 
through open front and sleeves of lilac shirt. The dashing 
sparkle of this animate splendour, who looked to me as 
though the sea-waves and the sun had made him in some 
hour of secret and unquiet rapture, was somehow emphasised 
by a curious dint dividing his square chin, — a cleft that 
harmonised with smile on lip and steady flame in eyes. I 
hardly know what effect it would have upon a reader to 
compare his eyes to opals. Yet Stefano's eyes, as they met 
mine had the vitreous intensity of opals, as if though the 
colour of Venetian waters were vitalised in them. This 
noticeable being had a rough hoarse voice which, to develop 
the parallel with a sea-god, might have screamed in storm or 
whispered raucous messages from crests of tossing billows. 
I felt, as I looked, that here, for me at least, the mytho- 
poem of the lagoons was humanised; the spirit of the salt- 
water lakes had appeared to me; the final touch of life 
emergent from nature had been given. I was satisfied; for 
I had seen a poem. 



CHIOGGIA 

HENRY ECROYD 

FROM Chioggia southward, runs the stupendous sea- 
wall, built by order of the Venetian Republic, to 
prevent the encroachments of the sea. It is im- 
mediately inland of this massive embankment that the most 
productive eel-grounds are situated. We will describe one 
with which we are familiar, containing a surface area of 800 
acres, lying to the eastward of Ariano, between the mouths 
of the Po, known respectively as la bocca di Levante and la 
bocca della Maestra. This lagoon is sheltered to the east- 
ward by the sea-wall, and upon the other sides by artificial 
embankments. Between the eastern border and the sea-line 
a communication is maintained by means of a wide deep 
pass, about a mile in length, with sluice-gates at either end. 

When Christmas approaches and a dark winter's night 
conjures up the spirit of the storm from out the usually 
calm and playful Adriatic, then is the time when the eel- 
gardener and his men await the moment for gathering in 
their annual crops. 

Imagine, if you can, reader, such a night. A stiff sea- 
breeze blowing (not as in England, a north-wester — in the 
Adriatic and Mediterranean it is the south-easter which 
the mariner most dreads) ; a murky blackness, throwing 
even the inky morass into deeper gloom ; a wild tempestuous 

338 





If 












"' - — -;-^5^r^ 




•*•■•- ^U'-'f?^- 


4 . *,P. 

■ " '- : ■ 



FISH MARKET IX VENICE 



CHIOGGIA 339 

sea foaming and moaning, and lashing in impotent fury the 
low line of the western coast. At high tide, in the darkness 
of the night, the flood-gates are opened, and in burst the salt- 
water waves. Gurgling and heaving, with tumultuous 
force, onward they flow; perceptibly loud is the noise of 
their coming, above the sound of the wind or the creaking 
of the willows. Onward, still onward, the briny water 
rushes to mingle with the aqua dolce of the inward lagoon. 
Scarce has the salt stream made half its distance when 
the lagoon seems instinct with life; its waters seething and 
boiling, at first low and indistinct, then gradually more 
stirring and confused, until its surface disgorges myriads of 
the eely tribe, converging towards the point where the sea- 
water must meet them. With surprising quickness they roll 
onwards through the rapidly narrowing channel, the noise 
they make becoming absolutely appalling. Vast balls of 
intertwined millions choke the course of the stream, and 
rise high above the surface, as they struggle onward towards 
the inflowing tide, which, with marvellous instinct, they 
have scented long before it has made half the distance be- 
tween them and the open sea. When the water has 
become thoroughly brackish, wire-work sluice-gates are drawn 
across the dyke, and the whole produce of the lagoon is 
concentrated within an area of half an acre of space. Then 
commences the take, as /e may term it; day and night 
relays of men haul out of the water and assort the eels. A 
large proportion are immediately skinned for salting and 
pickling, others are shipped off alive in trading vessels 



34o VENICE 

(native and foreign) waiting to receive them, whilst the 
smaller ones and the breed eels are thrown back into the 
water. 

The process of unravelling the knotted heaps requires 
great expertness and a sharp knife. While the writer was 
watching this singular and interesting scene, one of the 
fishermen, with that quickness of imaginative adaptation 
which distinguishes the Pescatore of the Adriatic, remarked 
to him: " M i pare che questo e un vero Nodo Gordiano!" 
A Gordian knot indeed it seemed to be. 

A propos to the subject: the Venetian fisherman is a 
rare specimen of his kind; after years spent on board his 
little fishing-smack, he will suddenly relinquish his sea- 
faring life and turn oyster-hawker (while oysters are in 
season), and venditore di sorhetto, or roba dolce, during 
the other months of the year. Such characters are known 
familiarly as " Chioggiotti," and wander from town to town, 
frequenting the trattoria and locanda, ever ready to bandy 
jokes or spin a yarn for the amusement of their avventori. 

These Chioggiotti are the inhabitants of a thickly-populated 
group of islands, or rather sand-banks, lying south-west of 
Venice. Chioggia, from which they take their name, is the 
largest of these islands; it contains about 25,000 inhabitants, 
and lies adjacent to the mainland. The inhabitants are a 
people quite distinct from the Venetians, and we incline to 
regard them as descendants of the Pelasgian or Etrurian 
races who inhabited the neighbouring districts in pre-Roman 
days. In their physiognomy, in their costume, and in their 



CHIOGGIA 341 

general habits of life, they differ entirely from any other 
people of the Italian peninsula; the women are remarkable 
for their well-developed forms and commanding features, 
betokening robust and healthy physical organisation, and 
their costume is strikingly picturesque; whilst the men are 
sober, frugal, and industrious, occupying themselves in fish- 
ing and market-gardening. Each family estimates its 
wealth by the number of its fishing-smacks and the extent 
of the campi it has under potato, cauliflower, and asparagus 
culture. 

The grand sight in Chioggia is its fish-market, a sight 
unique of its kind in Europe. From the time the sale of 
fish commences, the scene is one of the most animated im- 
aginable, if we can call that animation the peculiar character- 
istic of which is silence. Each fishing-smack as it arrives off 
the port transfers its cargo to a canoe-tender, which swiftly 
threads the watery pathway, and shoots alongside the riviera 
della Pescheria. The fish is carried from the boat by the fac- 
chini della Piazza, and assorted upon marble slabs — the small 
fish in heaps, the large fish side by side ; the auctioneer, having 
attached a number to each lot, and entered them in his book, 
is ready to receive the bids of the intending purchasers, who 
are willing to take them to the different inland markets. 
The whole proceeding now assumes an air of indescribable 
mystery to the uninitiated stranger: in the midst of a dream- 
like silence dealer after dealer steps up to the auctioneer, 
whispers in his ear the price he is willing to give for each 
lot as it is announced, and then retires. When all have ap- 



342 VENICE 

parently whispered their bid, and a last pantomimic appeal 
for yet another offer has been made, the name of the highest 
bidder and the price he has offered is noted in the book. As 
lot after lot is thus disposed of, the auctioneer scribbles a 
duplicate card, and throws it to a deputy, who announces the 
purchaser to whom it has been assigned. 

Boat-load after boat-load arrives, and is disposed of by 
silent auction, without a word being spoken audibly by either 
auctioneer or bidder, and with a celerity perfectly surprising ; 
thus fish to the value of thousands of florins are daily dis- 
tributed amongst the Lombardo-Venetian markets, which 
are dependent upon this singular and isolated community for 
their supply of fish, oysters, and other frutto del mare, as 
well as for the first choice vegetables of the season. We 
have eaten many varieties of fish in Chioggia which are un- 
known west of the Straits of Gibraltar, and are probably 
even rarely met with except in the immediate vicinity of the 
Venetian lagoons. 



MURANO 

JOHN RUSKIN 

BUT it is morning now: we have a hard day's work 
to do at Murano, and our boat shoots swiftly from 
beneath the last bridge of Venice, and brings us 
out into the open sea and sky. 

The pure cumuli of cloud lie crowded and leaning against 
one another, rank beyond rank, far over the shining water, 
each cut away at its foundation by a level line, trenchant and 
clear, till they sink to the horizon like a flight of marble 
steps, except where the mountains meet them, and are lost in 
them, barred across by the grey terraces of those cloud foun- 
dations, and reduced into one crestless bank of blue, spotted 
here and there with strange flakes of wan, aerial, greenish 
light, strewed upon them like snow. And underneath is the 
long dark line of the mainland, fringed with low trees; and 
then the wide-waving surface of the burnished lagoon 
trembling slowly, and shaking out into forked bands of 
lengthening light the images of the towers of cloud above. 
To the north, there is first the great cemetery wall, then the 
long stray buildings of Murano, and the island villages be- 
yond, glittering in intense crystalline vermilion, like so 
much jewellery scattered on a mirror, their towers poised 
apparently in the air a little above the horizon, and their 
reflections, as sharp and vivid and substantial as them- 
selves, thrown on the vacancy between them and the sea. 

343 



344 VENICE 

And thus the villages seem standing on the air; and to 
the east, there is a cluster of ships that seem sailing on 
the land; for the sandy line of the Lido stretches itself 
between us and them, and we can see the tall white sails 
moving beyond it, but not the sea, only there is a sense of the 
great sea being indeed there, and a solemn strength of gleam- 
ing light in sky above. 

The most discordant feature in the whole scene is the 
cloud which hovers above the glass furnaces of Murano; but 
this we may not regret, as it is one of the last signs left of 
human exertion among the ruinous villages which surround 
us. The silent gliding of the gondola brings it nearer to 
us every moment; we pass the cemetery, and a deep sea- 
channel which separates it from Murano, and finally enter a 
narrow water-street, with a paved footpath on each side, 
raised three or four feet above the canal, and forming a kind 
of quay between the water and the doors of the houses. 
These latter are, for the most part low, but built with massy 
doors and windows of marble or Istrian stone, square set, 
and barred with iron ; buildings evidently once of no mean 
order, though now inhabited only by the poor. Here and 
there an ogee window of the Fourteenth Century, or a door- 
way deeply enriched with cable mouldings, shows itself in 
the midst of more ordinary features; and several houses, 
consisting of one story only carried on square pillars, forming 
a short arcade along the quay, have windows sustained on 
shafts of red Verona marble, of singular grace and delicacy. 
All now in vain: little care is there for their delicacy or 



MURANO 345 

grace among the rough fishermen sauntering on the quay, 
with their jackets hanging loose from their shoulder, jacket, 
cap and hair all of the same dark-greenish sea-grey. But 
there is some life in the scene, more than is usual in Venice: 
the women are sitting at their doors knitting busily, and 
various workmen of the glass-houses sifting glass dust upon 
the pavement, and strange cries coming from one side of the 
canal to the other, and ringing far along the crowded water, 
from venders of figs and grapes, and gourds and shell-fish; 
cries partly descriptive of the eatables in question, but inter- 
spersed with others of a character unintelligible in propor- 
tion to their violence, and fortunately so if we may judge by 
a sentence which is stencilled in black within a garland, on 
the whitewashed walls of nearly every other house in the 
street, but which, how often soever written no one seems to 
regard : " Bestemme non piu. Lodate Gesu." 

We push our way on between large barges laden with 
fresh water from Fusina, in round white tubs, seven feet 
across, and complicated boats full of all manner of nets that 
look as if they could never be disentangled, hanging from 
their masts and over their sides; and presently pass under a 
bridge with the lion of St. Mark's on its archivolt, and an- 
other on a pillar at the end of a parapet, a small red lion 
with much of the puppy in his face, looking vacantly up in 
the air (in passing we may note that, instead of feathers, his 
wings are covered with hair, and in several other points 
the manner of his sculpture is not uninteresting). Presently 
the canal turns a little to the left, and thereupon becomes 



346 VENICE 

more quiet, the main bustle of the water-street being usually 
confined to the first straight reach of it, some quarter of a 
mile long, the Cheapside of Murano. We pass a consider- 
able church on the left, St. Pietro, and a little square opposite 
to it with a few acacia trees, and then find our boat suddenly 
seized by a strong green eddy and whirled into the tide-way 
of one of the main channels of the lagoon, which divides the 
town of Murano into two parts by a deep stream some fifty 
yards over crossed only by one wooden bridge. We let 
ourselves drift some way down the current looking at the 
low line of cottages on the other side of it, hardly knowing if 
there be more cheerfulness or melancholy in the way the sun- 
shine glows on their ruinous but whitewashed walls, and 
sparkles on the rushing of the green water by the grass- 
grown quay. It needs a strong stroke of the oar to bring us 
into the mouth of another quiet canal of the farther side of 
the tide-way, and we are still somewhat giddy when we run 
the head of the gondola into the sand on the left-hand side 
of this more sluggish stream, and land under the east end of 
the Church of San Donato, the " Matrice " or " Mother " 
Church of Murano. 

It stands, it and the heavy campanile detached from it a 
few yards, in a small triangular field of somewhat fresher 
grass than is usual near Venice, traversed by a paved walk 
with green mosaic of short grass between the rude squares of 
its stones, bounded on one side by ruinous garden walls, on 
another by a line of low cottages, on the third, the base of 
the triangle, by the shallow canal from which we have just 



MURANO 347 

landed. Near the point of the triangular space is a simple 
well, bearing date 1502; in its widest part, between the 
canal and campanile, is a four-square hollow pillar, each side 
formed by a separate slab of stone, to which the iron hasps 
are still attached that once secured the Venetian standard. 

The cathedral itself occupies the northern angle of the 
field, encumbered with modern buildings, small outhouse-like 
chapels, and wastes of white wall with blank square win- 
dows, and itself utterly defaced in the whole body of it, 
nothing but the apse having been spared; the original plan 
is only discoverable by careful examination, and even then 
but partially. The whole impression and effect of the build- 
ing are irretrievably lost, but the fragments of it are still 
most precious. 

We must first briefly state what is known of its history. 

The legends of the Romish Church, though generally 
more insipid and less varied than those of Paganism, deserve 
audience from us on this ground, if on no other, that they 
have once been sincerely believed in by good men, and have 
had no ineffective agency in the foundation of the existent 
European mind. The reader must not therefore accuse me 
of trifling, when I record for him the first piece of infor- 
mation I have been able to collect respecting the cathedral of 
Murano: namely, that the Emperor Otho the Great, being 
overtaken by a storm on the Adriatic, vowed, if he were 
preserved, to build and dedicate a church to the Virgin, in 
whatever place might be most pleasing to her; that the 
storm thereupon abated ; and the Virgin appearing to Otho 



348 VENICE 

in a dream showed him, covered with lilies, that very trian- 
gular field on which we were but now standing, amidst the 
ragged weeds and shattered pavement. The emperor obeyed 
the vision; and the church was consecrated on the 15th of 
August, 957. 

Whatever degree of credence we may feel disposed to at- 
tach to this piece of history, there is no question that a 
church was built on this spot before the close of the Tenth 
Century: since the year 999 we find the incumbent of the 
Basilica (note this word, it is of some importance), di Santa 
Maria Plebania di Murano taking an oath of obedience to 
the Bishop of the Altinat church, and engaging at the same 
time to give the said bishop his dinner on the Domenica in 
Albis, when the prelate held a confirmation in the mother 
church, as it was then commonly called of Murano. From 
this period, for more than a century, I can find no records 
of any alterations made in the fabric of the church, but there 
exist very full details of the quarrels which arose between its 
incumbents and those of San Stefano, San Cipriano, San 
Salvatore, and the other churches of Murano, touching the 
due obedience which their less numerous or less ancient 
brotherhoods owed to St. Mary's. 

These differences seem to have been renewed at the election 
of every new abbot by each of the fraternities, and must have 
been growing serious when the Patriarch of Grado, Henry 
Dandolo, interfered in 1 102, and in order to seal a peace 
between the two principal opponents, ordered that the abbot 
of St. Stephen's should be present at the service in St. Mary's 



MURANO 349 

on the night of the Epiphany, and that the abbot of St. 
Mary's should visit him of St. Stephen's on St. Stephen's 
day ; and that then the two abbots " should eat apples and 
drink good wine together, in peace and charity." * 

But even this kindly effort seems to have been without 
result; the irritated pride of the antagonists remained un- 
soothed by the love-feast of St. Stephen's day ; and the breach 
continued to widen until the abbot of St. Mary's obtained 
a timely accession to his authority in the year 1125. The 
Doge Domenico Michele, having in the Second Crusade 
secured such substantial advantages for the Venetians as 
might well counterbalance the loss of part of their trade with 
the East, crowned his successes by obtaining possession in 
Cephalonia of the body of San Donato, bishop of Euroea; 
which treasure he having presented on his return to the 
Murano basilica, that church was thenceforward called the 
church of Sts. Mary and Donato. Nor was the body of the 
saint its only acquisition: St. Donato's principal achieve- 
ment had been the destruction of a terrible dragon in Epirus ; 
Michele brought home the bones of the dragon as well as of 
the saint; the latter were put in a marble sarcophagus, and 
the former hung up over the high altar. 

But the clergy of St. Stefano were indomitable. At the 
very moment when their adversaries had received this for- 
midable accession of strength, they had the audacity " ad onto 

1 Perhaps in the choice of the abbot's cheer, there was some occult 
reference to the verse of Solomon's Song : " Stay me with flagons, 
comfort me with apples." 



35© VENICE 

de replicati giuramenti, e delV inveterata consuetudinef* to 
refuse to continue in the obedience which they had vowed to 
their mother church. The matter was tried in a provincial 
council; the votaries of St. Stephen were condemned, and 
remained quiet for about twenty years, in wholesome dread 
of the authority conferred on the abbot of St. Donato, by the 
Pope's legate, to suspend any of the clergy of the island from 
their office if they refused submission. In 1172, however, 
they appealed to Pope Alexander III., and were condemned 
again: and we find the struggle renewed at every promising 
opportunity, during the course of the Twelfth and Thirteenth 
Centuries; until, at last, finding St. Donato and the dragon 
together too strong for him, the abbot of St. Stefano " dis- 
covered " in his church the bodies of two hundred martyrs 
at once! — a discovery, it is to be remembered, in some sort 
equivalent to those days to that of California in ours. The 
inscription, however, on the fagade of the church recorded it 
with quiet dignity :— " MCCCLXXIV. a di XIV., di 
Aprile. Furono trovati nella presente chiesa del protomar- 
tire San Stefano, duecento epiu corpi de' Santi Martiri, dal 
Ven. Prete Matteo Fradello provano della chiesa." x Cor- 
ner, who gives this inscription, which no longer exists, goes 
on to explain with infinite gravity, that the bodies in ques- 
tion, " being of infantile form and stature, are reported by 

l On the 14th day of April, 1374, there were found, in this church 
of the first martyr, St. Stefano, two hundred and more bodies of holy 
martyrs, by the venerable priest, Matthew Fradello, incumbent of 
this church. 



MURANO 351 

tradition to have belonged to those fortunate innocents who 
suffered martyrdom under King Herod; but that when, or 
by whom, the church was enriched with so vast a treasure, is 
not manifested by any document." 

The issue of the struggle is not to our present purpose. 
We have already arrived at the Fourteenth Century, with- 
out finding record of any effort made by the clergy of St. 
Mary's to maintain their influence by restoring or beautify- 
ing their basilica; which is the only point at present of im- 
portance to us. That great alterations were made in it at 
the time of the acquisition of the body of St. Donato is, 
however, highly probable, the mosaic pavement of the in- 
terior, which bears its date 1140, being probably the last of 
the additions. I believe that no part of the ancient church 
can be shown to be of more recent date than this; and I 
shall not occupy the reader's time by any inquiry respecting 
the epochs or authors of the destructive modern restorations; 
the wreck of the old fabric, breaking out from beneath them 
here and there, is generally distinguishable from them at a 
glance ; and it is enough for the reader to know that none of 
these truly ancient fragments can be assigned to a more recent 
date than 1140, and that some of them may with probability 
be looked upon as remains of the shell of the first church 
erected in the course of the latter half of the Tenth Century. 

It is roofed by a concha, or semi-dome; and the external 
arrangement of its walls provides for the security of this 
dome by what is, in fact, a system of buttresses as effective 
and definite as that of any of the northern churches, although 



352 VENICE 

the buttresses are obtained entirely by adaptations of the 
Roman shaft and arch, the lower story being formed by a 
thick mass of wall lightened by ordinary semicircular round- 
headed niches, like those used so extensively afterwards in 
Renaissance architecture, each niche flanked by a pair of 
shafts standing clear of the wall and bearing deeply moulded 
arches thrown over the niche. The wall with its pillars 
thus forms a series of massy buttresses, on the top of which 
is an open gallery, backed by a thinner wall, and roofed by 
arches whose shafts are set above the pairs of shafts below. 
On the heads of these arches rests the roof. We have, 
therefore, externally a heptagonal apse, chiefly of rough and 
common brick, only with marble shafts and a few marble 
ornaments; but for that reason all the more interesting, 
because it shows us what may be done, and what was done, 
with materials such as are now at our own command; and 
because in its proportions, and in the use of the few orna- 
ments it possesses, it displays a delicacy of feeling rendered 
doubly notable by the roughness of the work in which laws 
so subtle are observed, and with which so thoughtful orna- 
mentation is associated. 

We must now see what is left of interest within the walls. 

All hope is taken away by our first glance; for it falls 
on a range of shafts whose bases are concealed by wooden 
panelling, and which sustains arches decorated in the most 
approved style of Renaissance upholstery, with stucco roses 
in squares under the soffits, and egg and arrow mouldings 
on the architraves, gilded, on a ground of spotty black and 



MURANO 353 

green, with a small pink-faced and black-eyed cherub on 
every keystone; the rest of the church being for the most 
part concealed either by dirty hangings, or dirtier whitewash, 
or dim pictures on warped and wasting canvas; all vulgar, 
vain, and foul. Yet let us not turn back, for in the shadow 
of the apse our more careful glance shows us a Greek Ma- 
donna, pictured on a field of gold; and we feel giddy at 
the first step we make on the pavement, for it, also, is of 
Greek mosaic, waved like the sea and dyed like a dove's neck. 
Nor are the original features of the rest of the edifice 
altogether indecipherable; the entire series of shafts marked 
in the ground plan on each side of the nave from the western 
entrance to the apse, are nearly uninjured; and I believe 
the stilted arches they sustain are those of the original fabric, 
though the masonary is covered by the Renaissance stucco 
mouldings. Their capitals, for a wonder, are left bare, 
and appear to have sustained no farther injury than has 
resulted from the insertion of a large brass chandelier into 
each of their abaci, each chandelier carrying a sublime wax 
candle two inches thick, fastened with wire to the wall 
above. The due arrangements of these appendages, previous 
to festa days, can only be effected from a ladder set against 
the angle of the abacus; and ten minutes before I wrote this 
sentence, I had the privilege of watching the candle-lighter 
at his work, knocking his ladder about the heads of the 
capitals as if they had given him personal offence. He at 
last succeeded in breaking away one of the lamps altogther, 
with a bit of the marble of the abacus; the whole falling in 



354 VENICE 

ruin to the pavement, and causing much consultation and 
clamour among a tribe of beggars who were assisting the 
sacristan with their wisdom respecting the festal arrange- 
ments. 

It is fortunate that the capitals themselves, being some- 
what rudely cut, can bear this kind of treatment better 
than most of those in Venice. They are all founded on the 
Corinthian type, but the leaves are in every one different; 
those of the easternmost capital of the southern range are the 
best, and very beautiful, but presenting no feature of much 
interest, their workmanship being inferior to most of the 
imitations of Corinthian common at the period; much more 
to the rich fantasies which we have seen at Torcello. The 
apse itself to-day (12th September, 1851), is not to be de- 
scribed; for just in front of it, behind the altar, is a magnif- 
icent curtain of a new red velvet with a gilt edge and two 
golden tassels, held up in a dainty manner by two angels in 
the upholsterer's service; and above all, for concentration of 
effect a star or sun, some five feet broad, the spikes of which 
conceal the whole of the figure of the Madonna except the 
head and hands. 

The pavement is however still left open, and it is of 
infinite interest, although grievously distorted and defaced. 
For whenever a new chapel has been built, or a new altar 
erected the pavement has been broken up and readjusted so 
as to surround the newly inserted steps or stones with some 
appearance of symmetry; portions of it either carved or 
carried away, others mercilessly shattered or replaced by 



MURANO 355 

modern imitations, and those of very different periods, with 
pieces of the old floor left here and there in the midst of 
them, and worked round so as to deceive the eye into accept- 
ance of the whole as ancient. The portion, however, which 
occupies the western extremity of the nave, and the parts 
immediately adjoining it in the aisles, are, I believe, in their 
original positions, and very little injured: they are composed 
chiefly of groups of peacocks, lions, stags, and griffins, — two 
of each in a group, drinking out of the same vase, or shaking 
claws together, — enclosed by interlacing bands, and alternat- 
ing with chequer or star patterns, and here and there an 
attempt at representation of architecture, all worked in 
marble mosaic. The floors of Torcello and of St. Mark's 
are executed in the same manner; but what remains at 
Murano is finer than either, in the extraordinary play of 
colour obtained by the use of variegated marbles. At St. 
Mark's the patterns are more intricate, and the pieces far 
more skilfully set together; but each piece is there com- 
monly of one colour: at Murano every fragment is itself 
variegated, and all are arranged with a skill and feeling not 
to be taught, and to be observed with deep reverence, for 
that pavement is not dateless, like the rest of the church; it 
bears its date on one of its central circles, 1140, and is, in my 
mind, one of the most precious monuments in Italy, showing 
thus early, and in those rude chequers which the bared knee 
of the Murano fisher wears in its daily bending, the begin- 
ning of that mighty spirit of Venetian colour, which was to 
be consummated in Titian. 



ST FRANCIS IN THE DESERT 

LINDA VILLAR1 

FAR away in the north-eastern lagoon lies the un- 
frequented islet of San Francisco nel Deserto, with 
its lonely monastery belted with cypresses to shield 
it from winter blasts, and with a solitary stone-pine set like 
a watch-tower at its southern corner towards Venice. 

This northern lagoon is of sterner beauty than the crowded 
water to the south. Far away to the left it is bordered by a 
narrow strip of plain, backed by the mountain ranges of 
Friuli and Cadori. These sweep round its waters in noble 
lines and curves, broken here and there by shadowy peaks. 
On very clear days the soaring mass of the Pelmo and the 
snows of Mont' Antelao are distinctly visible; and the aged 
Titian in his fine palace near the Fondamenta Nuove must 
have often cast wistful glances towards the giant guardians 
of his boyhood's home. To the right lie numerous verdant 
islets like loosely-strung emeralds, and the towers and domes 
of Murano do not long shut out the view of those of Maz- 
zorbo and Burano, overtopped by the taller belfry of Tor- 
cello behind. The one repellant feature of the lagoon is the 
unsightly blank wall of the burial-ground of San Michele. 
" So small an island," cries our boatman, " and yet it can 
hold all Venice ! " But why need this place of rest wear the 
aspect of a dungeon for the dead? Must a memento mori 

356 



ST. FRANCIS IN THE DESERT 357 

be inevitably as hideous as the death's head of a penitent's 
cell? 

At low tide the shallows about Murano shine like bur- 
nished mirrors; forests of weed wave unceasingly to and fro 
beneath their clear surface, and the green blades are studded 
with the little pearl shells that, when polished, are woven 
into the well-known trinkets that fill so many shop-fronts 
at St. Mark's. 

On the day of our voyage to San Francesco, we ran 
aground among these shells; for while the veteran rowers of 
our companion gondola chose the circuitous route by the 
channel posts, our more daring Antonio attempted a short 
cut. He had never run aground, he said, and seemed con- 
vinced that his gondola could float in a tumbler-depth of 
water. But the waving weeds came nearer and nearer to 
the surface, we struck midway; and Antonio and his hand- 
some mate— the ideal of a stage brigand— had to turn out 
into the shallows and shove and tug for many minutes before 
we are again afloat. It was ignominious to have to go round 
by the channel after all, and be received with broad grins 
and mild jeers by the cautious rowers of the other boat. 
But Antonio laughed good-humouredly, shook his curls, and, 
spreading his sail to the breeze, took us across the lagoon at 
a grand pace, far ahead of our friends. Past the forlorn 
islets where gunpowder is stored, and where forlorner sen- 
tinels watched our flight with wistful eyes; past huge rafts, 
long and sinuous as sea-serpents, with little huts upon them, 
and patches of moss and lichen that spoke to us of the Tyro- 



358 VENICE 

lese forests, whence they had been torn. Presently our 
course changed, our sail flapped, and leaving the huddled 
houses and factories of Burano to the left, we made straight 
for the ruddy tower of San Francesco nel Deserto. It is no 
uncheerful desert at this season, though doubtless dreary 
enough in winter storms and fogs. For its southern win- 
dows look over to Venice, and, through the summer haze, 
walls, towers and domes are faintly seen — vague and un- 
substantial as a city of air. Far away to the west stretches 
the soft green line of the mainland, only broken by a few 
slender bell-towers, mere black lines against the thick cloud- 
curtains now veiling the mountain world behind. Grass- 
lands and belts of foliage close in the view to the east. 

A narrow causeway through a slip of meadow brings us 
to the convent porch, where a hale and portly Franciscan 
bids us a hearty welcome. But we defer our visit to the 
church; our first duty being clearly to make tea for our 
thirsty guests. By a gate bowered with flowering oleanders, 
we enter an orchard close where the gnarled and stunted trees 
are knee-deep in grass. We wade through it to the en- 
circling dyke and its double row of cypresses; and having 
found a sheltered shrine for our spirit-lamp, revel in the 
wonderful view. Our artist-friends seize their sketch- 
books, forgetting both hunger and thirst, for there are sub- 
jects on all sides. Fantastic interchange of land and water 
formed by the scattered weed-flats and flowery meadows; 
the long shadows of the cypress trees, the ruddy tower and 
rounded chancel of the Lombard Church, the fan-shaped 



ST. FRANCIS IN THE DESERT 359 

chimneys and irregular roof-lines of the straggling convent, 
the tender tints of the lagoon, and, best of all, the visionary 
city rising from the sea to the south. The beacon pine-tree 
is invisible from this side, and, being within the convent 
garden, may not be approached by female feet. 

Time passes quickly; the sun is low. We seek our smil- 
ing friar and hasten into the church. It is a dim and 
shadowy interior at this hour, and little of the clear evening 
light finds its way through the narrow windows. Behind a 
grating near the high altar, we are shown San Francesco's 
rock-hewn cell, containing a life-size effigy of the saint. We 
are puzzled by the geological anomaly of a rocky cave on a 
sandy isle; but perhaps San Francesco brought it with him 
from Assisi. On turning into the choir, our irreverence was 
checked by the apparition of a similar figure, equally emaci- 
ated and rigid, seated in the darkest corner of the church. 
This, however, was a living monk wrapt in prayer, and 
apparently unconscious of our intruding presence. Another 
haggard form slowly emerged from the shadows and dis- 
appeared through the doorway. It was reassuring to glance 
at our stout Franciscan — there was nothing ghostly about 
him — and to follow his substantial tread into the outer 
court. Here there was nothing to attract the eye, but 
through a corner door we were allowed a glimpse of the 
inner cloister with delicate twisted columns, and a fine 
sculptured well surrounded by radiant beds of carnations and 
gladioli. Our jovial guide seemed justly proud of his 
flowers, and instantly bustled in to pick us a handful. He 



360 VENICE 

told us that the brethren were twenty in number, but this 
may have been a pious fiction in honour of his patron saint, 
for our gondoliers who had frequently entered the convent, 
assured us there were only eight. Of course by law the 
community is suppressed, but the law cannot prevent the 
purchase of the building by some private individual who 
brings friends to live with him, and chooses to dress in 
brown woollen robes. Of course, too, by law there is no 
clausura. 

Once, a lady artist, burning to see some famous picture 
buried in an Italian monastery, presented herself at its gate, 
and urged her legal right. The case was submitted to the 
Superior, who blandly acknowledged that the law of the 
land entitled her to enter; but added, that as by the rules of 
the Church cloistered ground was desecrated by woman's 
step, he was sure she would kindly submit to be carried in 
by her coachman. The lady went away without seeing the 
picture. 

But now the distant lines of spires and domes, the arsenal 
walls and soaring tower of San Francesco della Vigna, stood 
out darkly against the glow of the great red sun; and the 
thickening storm-clouds over Burano reminded us that seven 
miles of water lay between us and our home. We raced 
the storm and won ; for although its ragged edges threatened 
to descend upon us, though thunder growled and lightning 
flashed, a sudden wind presently arose and drove it away to 
the north. It was high tide by this time, and there was 
much traffic on the lagoon. Painted sails were flitting in all 



ST. FRANCIS IN THE DESERT 361 

directions; we passed many Rialto-bound fruit boats and 
crawling barges with nondescript cargoes, and each and all 
added to the charm of the scene. We met a fat Franciscan 
returning to his cloister from a day of business — or perhaps 
pleasure — in Venice. He sat enthroned on a chair in a tiny 
sandalo, was sipping some cordial from a case-bottle, and 
gave us a very spiteful glance as we exclaimed at his pictorial 
value. 

Reaching the Fondamenta Nuova just as the lamps were 
lighted, we shot through the city at a splendid pace, and found 
all the gay world assembling to hear the band at St. Mark's. 
The stir and animation of the southern lagoon was almost 
bewildering in contrast with the silent waters behind us, 
with the cypress-girdled isle in their midst. 



TORCELLO 

JOHN RUSKIN 

SEVEN miles to the north of Venice the banks of sand, 
which near the city rise little above low-water mark, 
attain by degrees a higher level, and knit themselves 
at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and there into 
shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea. 
One of the feeblest of these inlets, after winding for some 
time among buried fragments of masonry, and knots of sun- 
burnt weeds whitened with webs of fucus, stays itself in an 
utterly stagnant pool beside a plot of greener grass covered 
with ground ivy and violets. On this mound is built a rude 
brick campanile, of the commonest Lombardic type, which 
if we ascend towards evening (and there are none to hinder 
us, the door of its ruinous staircase swinging idly on its 
hinges), we may command from it one of the most notable 
scenes in this wide world of ours. Far as the eye can reach, 
a waste of wild sea moor, of a lurid ashen grey ; not like our 
northern moors with their jet-black pools and purple heath, 
but lifeless, the colour of sackcloth, with corrupted sea- 
water soaking through the roots of its acrid weeds, and gleam- 
ing hither and thither through its snaky channels. No 
gathering of fantastic mists, nor coursing of clouds across it; 
but melancholy clearness of space in the warm sunset, op- 
pressive, reaching to the horizon of its level gloom. To 

362 



TORCELLO 363 

the very horizon, on the north-east; but, to the north 
and west, there is a blue line of higher land along 
the border of it, and above this, but farther back, a misty 
band of mountains, touched with snow. To the east, the 
paleness and roar of the Adriatic, louder at momentary inter- 
vals as the surf breaks on the bars of sand ; to the south, the 
widening branches of the calm lagoon, alternately purple 
and pale green, as they reflect the evening clouds or twilight 
sky; and almost beneath our feet, on the same field which 
sustains the tower we gaze from, a group of four buildings, 
two of them little larger than cottages (though built of 
stone, and one adorned by a quaint belfry), the third, an 
octagonal chapel, of which we can see but little more than 
the flat red roof with its rayed tiling, the fourth, a consider- 
able church with nave and aisles, but of which, in like man- 
ner, we can see little but the long central ridge and lateral 
slopes of roof, which the sunlight separates in one glowing 
mass from the green field beneath and grey moor beyond. 
There are no living creatures near the buildings, nor any 
vestige of village or city round about them. They lie like a 
little company of ships becalmed on a far-away sea. 

Then look farther to the south. Beyond the widening 
branches of the lagoon, and rising out of the bright lake into 
which they gather, there are a multitude of towers, dark, and 
scattered among square-set shapes of clustered palaces, a long 
and irregular line fretting the southern sky. 

Mother and daughter, you behold them both in their 
widowhood, — Torcello, and Venice. 



364 VENICE 

Thirteen hundred years ago, the grey moorland looked 
as it does this day, and the purple mountains stood as radi- 
antly in the deep distances of evening ; but on the line of the 
horizon, there were strange fires mixed with the light of sun- 
set, and the lament of many human voices mixed with the 
fretting of the waves on their ridges of sand. The flames 
rose from the ruins of Altinum ; the lament from the multi- 
tude of its people, seeking, like Israel of old, a refuge from 
the sword in the paths of the sea. 

The cattle are feeding and resting upon the site of the 
city that they left; the mower's scythe swept this day at 
dawn over the chief street of the city that they built, and the 
swathes of soft grass are now sending up their scent into the 
night air, the only incense that fills the temple of their ancient 
worship. Let us go down into that little space of meadow 
land. 

The inlet which runs nearest to the base of the campanile 
is not that by which Torcello is commonly approached. 
Another, somewhat broader, and overhung by alder copse, 
winds out of the main channel of the lagoon up to the very 
edge of the little meadow which was once the Piazza of the 
city, and there, stayed by a few grey stones which present 
some semblance of a quay, forms its boundary at one extrem- 
ity. Hardly larger than an ordinary English farmyard, and 
roughly enclosed on each side by broken palings and hedges 
of honeysuckle and briar, the narrow field retires from the 
water's edge, traversed by a scarcely traceable footpath, for 
some forty or fifty paces, and then expanding into the form of 



TORCELLO 365 

a small square, with buildings on three sides of it, the fourth 
being that which opens to the water. Two of these, that on 
our left and that in front of us as we approached from the 
canal, are so small that they might well be taken for the out- 
houses of the farm, though the first is a conventual building, 
and the other aspires to the title " Palazzo pubblico," both 
dating as far back as the beginning of the Fourteenth Cen- 
tury; the third, the octagonal church of Santa Fosca, is far 
more ancient than either, yet hardly on a larger scale. 
Though the pillars of the portico which surrounds it are 
of pure Greek marble, and their capitals are enriched with 
delicate sculpture, they, and the arches they sustain, together 
only raise the roof to the height of a cattle-shed; and the 
first strong impression which the spectator receives from the 
whole scene is, that whatever sin it may have been which has 
on this spot been visited with so utter a desolation, it could 
not at least have been ambition. Nor will this impression be 
diminished as we approach, or enter, the larger church to 
which the whole group of buildings is subordinate. It has 
evidently been built by men in flight and distress, who sought 
in the hurried erection of their island church such a shelter 
for their earnest and sorrowful worship, as, on the one hand, 
could not attract the eyes of their enemies by its splendour, 
and yet, on the other, might not awaken too bitter feelings 
by its contrast with the churches which they had seen 
destroyed. There is visible everywhere a simple and tender 
effort to recover some of the form of the temples which they 
had loved, and to do honour to God by that which they were 



366 VENICE 

erecting, while distress and humiliation prevented the desire, 
and prudence precluded the admission, either of luxury of 
ornament or magnificence of plan. The exterior is absolutely- 
devoid of decoration, with the exception only of the western 
entrance and the lateral door, of which the former has carved 
sideposts and architrave, and the latter, crosses of rich sculp- 
ture; while the mossy stone shutters of the windows, turning 
on huge rings of stone, which answer the double purpose of 
stanchions and brackets, cause the whole building rather to 
resemble a refuge from the Alpine storm than the cathedral 
of a populous city; and, internally, the two column mosaics 
of the eastern and western extremities, — one representing 
the Last Judgment, the other the Madonna, her tears falling 
as her hands are raised to bless, — and the noble range of pillars 
which enclose the space between, terminated by the high 
throne for the pastor and the semicircular raised seats for the 
superior clergy, are expressive at once of the deep sorrow and 
the sacred courage of men who had no home left them upon 
earth, but who looked for one to come, of men " persecuted 
but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed." 

I am not aware of any other early church in Italy which 
has this peculiar expression in so marked a degree ; and it is 
so consistent with all that Christian architecture ought to 
express in every age (for the actual condition of the exiles 
who built the Cathedral of Torcello is exactly typical of the 
spiritual condition which every Christian ought to recognise 
in himself, a state of homelessness on earth, except so far as 
he can make the Most High his habitation), that I would 



TORCELLO 367 

rather fix the mind of the reader on this general character 
than on the separate details, however interesting, of the 
architecture itself. 

It is not, however, to be expected that either the mute 
language of early Christianity (however important a part of 
the expression of the building at the time of its erection), 
or the delicate fancies of the Gothic leafage springing into 
new life, should be read, or perceived, by the passing traveller 
who has never been taught to expect anything in architecture 
except Five Orders: yet he can hardly fail to be struck by 
the simplicity and dignity of the great shafts themselves; by 
the frank diffusion of light, which prevents their severity 
from becoming oppressive; by the delicate forms and lovely 
carving of the pulpit and chancel screen; and, above all, by 
the peculiar aspect of the eastern extremity of the church, 
which, instead of being withdrawn, as in later cathedrals, 
into a chapel dedicated to the Virgin, or contributing by the 
brilliancy of its windows to the splendour of the altar, and 
theatrical effect of the ceremonies performed there, is a 
simple and stern semicircular recess, filled beneath by three 
ranks of seats, raised one above the other, for the bishop and 
presbyters, that they might watch as well as guide the devo- 
tions of the people, and discharge literally in the daily service 
the functions of bishops or overseers of the flock of God. 

Let us consider a little each of these characters in succes- 
sion; and first (for of the shafts enough has been said 
already), what is very peculiar to the church, its luminous- 
ness. This perhaps strikes the traveller more from its con- 



368 VENICE 

trast with the excessive gloom of the Church of St. Mark's ; 
but it is remarkable when we compare the Cathedral of 
Torcello with any of the contemporary basilicas in South 
Italy or Lombardic churches in the North. St. Ambrogio 
at Milan, St. Michele at Pavia, St. Zeno at Verona, St. 
Frediano at Lucca, St. Miniato at Florence, are all like 
sepulchral caverns compared with Torcello, where the 
slightest details of the sculptures and mosaics are visible, 
even when twilight is deepening. And there is something 
especially touching in our finding the sunshine thus freely 
admitted into a church built by men in sorrow. They did 
not need the darkness; they could not perhaps bear it. 
There was fear and depression upon them enough, without 
a material gloom. They sought for comfort in their religion, 
for tangible hopes and promises, not for threatenings or 
mysteries; and though the subjects chosen for the mosaics 
on the walls are of the most solemn character, there are no 
artificial shadows cast upon them, nor dark colours used in 
them: all is fair and bright, and intended evidently to be 
regarded in hopefulness, and not with terror. 

Nor were the strength and elasticity of their minds, even 
in the least matters, diminished by thus looking forward to the 
close of all things. On the contrary, nothing is more re- 
markable than the finish and beauty of all the portions of the 
buildings, which seem to have been actually executed for the 
place they occupy in the present structure. The rudest are 
those which they brought with them from the mainland; 
the best and most beautiful those which appear to have been 



TORCELLO 369 

carved for their island church : of these, the new capitals and 
the exquisite panel ornaments of the chancel screen, are the 
most conspicuous; the latter form a low wall across the 
church between six small shafts and serve to enclose a space 
raised two steps above the level of the nave, destined for the 
singers. The bas-reliefs on this low screen are groups of 
peacocks and lions, two face to face on each panel, rich and 
fantastic beyond description, though not expressive of very 
accurate knowledge either of leonine or pavonine forms. 
And it is not until we pass to the back of the stair of the 
pulpit, which is connected with the northern extremity of this 
screen that we find evidence of the haste with which the 
church was constructed. 

The pulpit, however, is not among the least noticeable of 
its features. It is sustained on four small detached shafts 
between the two pillars at the north side of the screen ; both 
pillars and pulpit studiously plain, while the staircase which 
ascends to it is a compact mass of masonry faced by carved 
slabs of marble ; the parapet of the staircase being also formed 
of solid blocks like paving-stones, lightened by rich, but not 
deep exterior carving. 

It appears however questionable in the present instance, 
whether, if the marbles had not been carved to his hand, the 
architect would have taken the trouble to enrich them. For 
the execution of the rest of the pulpit is studiously simple, and 
it is in this respect that its design possesses, it seems to me, an 
interest to the religious spectator greater than he will take in 
any other portion of the building. It is supported, as I 



37© VENICE 

said, on a group of four slender shafts; itself of a slightly 
oval form, extending nearly from one pillar of the nave to 
the next, so as to give the preacher full room for the action 
of the entire person, which always gives an unaffected im- 
pressiveness to the eloquence of southern nations. In the 
centre of its curved front, a small bracket and detached shaft 
sustain the projection of a narrow marble desk (occupying 
the place of a cushion in a modern pulpit), which is hollowed 
out into a shallow curve on the upper surface, leaving a 
ledge at the bottom of the slab, so that a book laid upon it, or 
rather into it, settles itself there, opening as if by instinct, 
but without the least chance of slipping to the side, or in 
any way moving beneath the preacher's hands. Six balls, or 
rather almonds of purple marble veined with white are set 
round the edges of the pulpit, and form its only decoration. 
Perfectly graceful, but severe and almost cold in its simpli- 
city, built for permanence and service, so that no single mem- 
ber, no stone of it, could be spared, and yet all are firm and 
uninjured as when they were first set together, it stands in 
venerable contrast both with the fantastic pulpits of mediaeval 
cathedrals and with the rich furniture of those of our modern 
churches. 

But the severity which is so marked in the pulpit at 
Torcello is still more striking in the raised seats and episcopal 
throne which occupy the curve of the apse. The arrange- 
ment at first somewhat recalls to the mind that of the Roman 
amphitheatres; the flight of steps which lead up to the 
central throne divides the curve of the continuous steps or 



TORCELLO 371 

seats (it appears in the first three ranges questionable which 
were intended, for they seem too high for one, and too low 
and close for the other), exactly as in an amphitheatre the 
stairs for access intersect the sweeping ranges of seats. But 
in the very rudeness of this arrangement, and especially in the 
want of all appliances for comfort (for the whole is of 
marble, and the arms of the central throne are not for con- 
venience, but for distinction and to separate it more conspic- 
uously from the individual seats), there is a dignity which 
no furniture of stalls nor carving of canopies ever could 
attain, and well worth the contemplation of the Protestant, 
both as sternly significative of an episcopal authority which 
in the early days of the Church was never disputed, and as 
dependent for all its impressiveness on the utter absence of 
any expression either of pride or self-indulgence. 

But there is one more circumstance which we ought to 
remember as giving peculiar significance to the position which 
the episcopal throne occupies in this island church, namely, 
that in the minds of all early Christians the Church itself was 
most frequently symbolised under the image of a ship, of 
which the bishop was the pilot. Consider the force which 
this symbol would assume in the imaginations of men to whom 
the spiritual Church had become an ark of refuge in the midst 
of a destruction hardly less terrible than that from which the 
eight souls were saved of old, a destruction in which the 
wrath of man had become as broad as the earth and as merci- 
less as the sea, and who saw the actual and literal edifice of 
the Church raised up, itself like an ark in the midst of the 



372 VENICE 

waters. No marvel if with the surf of the Adriatic rolling 
between them and the shores of their birth, from which they 
were separated for ever, they should have looked upon each 
other as the disciples did when the storm came down on the 
Tiberias Lake, and have yielded ready and loving obedience 
to those who ruled them in His name, who had there rebuked 
the winds and commanded stillness to the sea. And if the 
stranger would yet learn in what spirit it was that the 
dominion of Venice was begun, and in what strength she 
went forth conquering and to conquer, let him not seek to 
estimate the wealth of her arsenals or number of her armies, 
nor look upon the pageantry of her palaces, nor enter into the 
secrets of her councils; but let him ascend the highest tier 
of the stern ledges that sweep round the altar of Torcello, 
and then, looking as the pilot did of old along the marble 
ribs of the goodly temple-ship, let him repeople its veined 
deck with the shadows of its dead mariners, and strive to feel 
in himself the strength of heart that was kindled within 
them, when first, after the pillars of it had settled in the sand, 
and the roof of it had been closed against the angry sky that 
was still reddened by the fires of their homesteads, — first, 
within the shelter of its knitted walls, amidst the murmur of 
the waste of waves and the beating of the wings of the sea- 
birds around the rock that was strange to them, — rose that 
ancient hymn, in the power of their gathered voices: 

"The Sea is His and He made it: 
And His hands prepared the dry land." 



H-39* 85 






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